British American Tobacco’s supply chain “circle of friends”
Holding VUSE, the world's largest bomb replacement brand, BAT is standing at a crossroads.
In April, according to domestic reports, it was revealed that British American Tobacco had planned to acquire elfbar in September last year. Just recently, British American Tobacco was involved in an antitrust investigation in Italy. Relevant regulatory agencies suspected that it omitted necessary warning information in its propaganda; and in May 2021, British American Tobacco was also investigated on suspicion of paying for publicity through KOL on social platforms.
As the world's largest tobacco company, British American Tobacco has a long history. British American Tobacco was first established in 1902 by a joint venture between Imperial Tobacco from the United Kingdom and American Tobacco from the United States. Markets other than Britain and the United States. British American Tobacco currently operates in more than 180 markets around the world, has more than 80 factories in 64 countries, and its latest market value exceeds US$80 billion. In 2022, British American Tobacco's revenue will reach US$34.085 billion.
VUSE is a subsidiary of China British American Tobacco (BAT), the four international tobacco giants.e-cigarette brands, organized by British American Tobacco's wholly-owned subsidiary Renault America (RAI) and its subsidiary Renaulte-cigarette companies(RJRV) operates. In addition to VUSE, it also includes Vype Poland's CHIC, UK VIP and Ten MOTIves。However, British American Tobacco's largest brand is VUSE. According to relevant data, VUSE has become the number one atomizing brand in the largest market in the United States, with a market share of 35.3%.
This actually reflects British American Tobacco's style to some extent-in order to change its disadvantaged situation, it will find a way to break through from all dimensions. This process cannot be separated from the strong support of China suppliers, a "circle of friends" with British American Tobacco.
In fact, unlike Apple's supply chain, British American Tobacco's supply chain companies are extremely secretive and low-key in China. Whether it is cigarette OEM or injection molding, to structural parts and injection molding, these companies are almost unknown to outsiders, and even many industry insiders are unclear.
In order to make these high-quality supply chain companies known to the public, Gewu sorted out this "circle of friends" based on public information and information from practitioners. Our information sources are based on public materials and industry research of listed companies. However, there must be omissions and inaccuracies in this process. All friends are welcome to correct them:
Simply put:
Cotton core/whole cigarette OEM-New Hongwei
Ceramic core/cigarette foundry-Simore
Battery-Yiwei Lithium Energy
Structural parts/charging cord-Shenglan Co., Ltd.
Packaging-jinjiashares
Packaging Materials-Zhongrong Co., Ltd.
Injection Molding-Dongjiang Group Holdings
Cotton core/whole cigarette OEM-New Hongwei
In 2021, the FDA announced the first product to pass PMTA-VUSE Solo. Although this product is no longer the main product of VUSE. This has been complained about by a large number of practitioners. VUSE Solo was released in July 2013. It is a "imitation cigarette shape" style.e-cigarettes, use cotton core and free alkalismoke oil--Now it seems to be lagging behind the times.
But at that time, VUSE Solo was a disruptive product-as of mid-2013, the United Statese-cigarette marketAbout 72% are disposable products. VUSE Solo has both near-one-time portability and a lower-cost bomb replacement model. The market quickly exploded. VUSE continued this route and launched Solo's upgraded VUSE Vibe in 2016 and Ciro in 2018.
It is worth noting that when VUSE officially released VUSE Solo in July 2013, it claimed to be designed and assembled entirely in the United States. However, after verification by many practitioners in the future, this cotton core product was mainly supplied by Huizhou City Xinhongwei Technology Co., Ltd.
According to public information, Xinhongwei was established in 2014. The company integrates research and development, manufacturing and sales, and mainly producesatomizerIts electronic products such as sets are sold to Europe, America, Southeast Asia and other regions, and have successively won titles such as high-tech enterprises, high-growth small and medium-sized enterprises in Guangdong Province, and top 100 innovative enterprises in Huizhou City.
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VUSE's three early "imitation cigarette products" confirm the saying,"If you go one step, you will decline again, and you will exhaust again." Solo made VUSE the number one market share in the United States, Vibe turned from prosperity to decline, and Ciro couldn't beat the same period.JUUL。
Ceramic core/cigarette foundry-Simore
In the British American Tobacco supply chain, the most well-known one is Thmore, which has been mentioned many times in various official news releases from Thmore in the past. About VUSE If you rely onFEELMThere are many opinions on this paragraph of reaching the bottom, but most of them are not divorced from the fact that Juul passednicotine saltThe introduction of e-cigarettes and subsequent marketing measures achieved first market share.
The invention of butyl salt was important to the entiree-cigarette industryNo matter how much you exaggerate, you cannot overstate the value. It allows the nicotine absorption rate of e-cigarettes to reach the level of cigarettes for the first time, which means that e-cigarettes can finally meet the cigarette replacement needs of general public smokers for "carrying around + quick addiction", rather than being limited to the early large smoke free alkali era. The niche circle playability of the era.
In other words, Juul is truly disruptive innovation. In 2018, the U.S. market ushered in the "new king". Juul became the first in the industry with a market share of over 60%, and received Altria's blessing. VUSE fell from more than 40% in 2016 to 10%. The problem facing British American Tobacco at this time is how to subversively optimize the use experience from the perspective of improving core technologies.
At that time, Cue, the first product to use FEELM ceramic cores, the South African brand Twisp, rose rapidly locally. FEELM ceramic cores entered British American Tobacco's vision, and both parties immediately launched VUSE Alto, which was a dimension reduction blow for Juul, which used cotton cores.
From the beginning of 2019 to the end of 2020, VUSE Alto bottomed out, with its U.S. market share increasing by 978%. In September 2021, British American Tobacco announced that VUSE will become the world's largest brand.
Based on data released by British American Tobacco in 2021,new tobaccoRevenue reached 2.054 billion pounds, a year-on-year increase of 50.9%. Among them, 90% of VUSE's annual revenue in the U.S. market came from VUSE Alto. VUSE Alto is still the main product of VUSE.
Battery-Yiwei Lithium Energy
In the "Announcement on Reply to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange Inquiry Letter" released by Yiwei Lithium Energy in March 2019, Yiwei Lithium Energy expressed concerne-cigarette batteryThe business has been explained. It began to enter the e-cigarette lithium battery business in 2012, focusing on researching food-grade safe lithium-ion battery technology, and is a supplier of e-cigarette batteries to companies such as British American Tobacco, Japan Tobacco, Imperial Tobacco, and Altria.
The "Electronic Atomizer Battery Solutions" special page on Yiwei Lithium Energy's official website also mentions "serving the world's top five tobacco giants and electronic atomizer brands". Its solutions include square, cylindrical soft-pack batteries and cylindrical steel shell batteries:
It can be seen from Yiwei Lithium Energy's 2022 annual report that it still maintains investment in the e-cigarette battery business and mentions the "fourth generation" that can "achieve lower self-discharge rate, higher reliability, and wide-temperature applications". Generation atomizer batteries are in progress with customers:
Structural parts/charging cord-Shenglan Co., Ltd.
Shenglan Co., Ltd. mentioned in its 2022 semi-annual report that "products are applied to well-known brands such as Huawei, OPPO, vivo, Nokia, Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and British American Tobacco by supplying companies such as Foxconn and Lixun Precision;"
At the same time, Shenglan also said in a reply to investors on October 27 last year: "In the past year, our company has been cooperating with well-known domestic brands in the electronic atomizer parts business. As national policies are further standardized, our company will gradually increase investment in research and development of e-cigarette atomizer accessories and other products."# p #pagination title #e #
According to public information, Shenglan Technology Co., Ltd. was established in 2007 and its business scope involves e-cigarette charging lines.the cartridgeResearch and development, production and sales of structural parts and tobacco rod hardware.
Injection Molding-Dongjiang Group Holdings
Due to the previously mentioned "supply chain protection", Dongjiang Group Holdings has not disclosed in official channels that its e-cigarette customers include British American Tobacco. However, according to information from supply chain sources and relevant information officially released by Dongjiang Holdings, it does have rapid development in e-cigarette injection molding: in its 2019 interim results release, it was revealed that it had successfully developed e-cigarette customers in China.
When the 2022 interim results were announced, it said: "The overseas e-cigarette market is booming. The Group mainly serves overseas brand customers, its technology is recognized by customers, and its business continues to develop. Its revenue increased by 57.4% year-on-year."
The 2022 full-year results mentioned: "In addition, the overseas e-cigarette market is developing at a high speed, and demand is increasing steadily. The process technology of the Group's electronic nebulizer has been recognized by overseas brand customers, and the revenue of the electronic nebulizer sector is increasing on an annual basis. 27.0%."
Packaging-Jinjia Co., Ltd.
In its 2020 annual report, Jinjia mentioned the business of color box products in e-cigarette cigarette packs and obtained the qualifications of packaging suppliers for brands such as British American Tobacco, Renault Tobacco, and Philip Morris International:
In the 2022 annual report released in April this year, Jinjia's description of this part of the business still includes British American Tobacco, and also developed Imperial Tobacco, PMI(Philip Morris International), NJOY (Altria's atomizing e-cigarette brand) andHeyuanTechnology, etc.:
Packaging Materials-Zhongrong Co., Ltd.
According to the relevant announcement of Zhongrong, in 2018, Zhongrong entered British American Tobacco through biddinge-cigarette productsQualified supplier system of packaging materials, packaging materials sold to Norante designated by British American Tobacco (also mentioned in the October 2022 prospectus.)
Starting from the second half of 2020, Zhongrong Co., Ltd. has successively taken over the foundry of British American Tobacco in Huizhou City Xinhongwei Technology Co., Ltd. and ShenzhenMcQuayFor orders from Technology Co., Ltd., in 2021, the scale of new orders from the above-mentioned customers will be 69.011 million yuan.
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As we mentioned in the previous article "Supply Chain Branding, Urgent Hope to Get Away from the" Cost Pricing Law ", the practice of" protecting the supply chain "is very common. Simply put, it is through exclusive, exclusive supply, or signing tripartite confidentiality agreements and other methods to keep your supply chain unknown to outsiders. As a result, many excellent supply chain companies have been behind the scenes for a long time.
Most of the supply chain companies mentioned in this article have not disclosed relevant information for this reason. Information can only be based on public information, such as reading the announcements of listed companies or seeking verification from relevant practitioners. In particular, it involves many companies that have become suppliers of British American Tobacco in the traditional tobacco era, which makes it inevitable that there are deviations or omissions in this article.
In fact, in addition to the above-mentioned companies, there are still companies including chips, tobacco oil,microphoneHigh-quality supply chain companies with important links have not come to the forefront. If you know or even have participated in it, please communicate with us.# p#pagination title #e#
