What is the future of vape?

Backed by over 300 million smokers in China vape, as a substitute for traditional cigarettes, has been pushed to the “window” by capital in recent years. However, one of the hottest consumer electronics products today is being increasingly questioned and restricted.

On October 9, two major e-commerce platforms, Ali and JD.com, announced the suspension of vape sales to U.S. buyers in line with the United States ’strict local vape policy. The industry believes that in China, the release and implementation of the vape industry standard has also been "on the go." As regulations tighten, what are the future prospects of the vape industry?

According to incomplete statistics from "vape World", in the first half of 2019 alone, there were more than 35 investment cases in the vape industry. According to the statistics of investment amounts disclosed, the total investment amount was at least over 1 billion yuan. Among them, after checking the public information, the reporter learned that the vape brand Gil, promoted by Nanjing Dumei Electronic Technology Co., Ltd., received an angel round financing of 12 million yuan in March 2019. The investor is an vape accessories manufacturer in Suzhou, which mainly produces smoke bomb accessories for a US giant vape brand.

"Vape is very popular as an entrepreneurial project in China, and it has almost occupied the right place." Soochow Securities Investment Consulting Co., Ltd. Li Zhaohui believes that compared with the 31% high penetration rate of vape in the United States, currently China's The penetration rate of vape is less than 1%. If the penetration rate is calculated at 10%, the market scale can reach 100 billion, which naturally attracts many entrepreneurs.

What is even more exciting for entrepreneurs is that although China is not the largest consumer market for vape, it is where the global vape and e-liquid manufacturers gather, accounting for more than 90% of global vape production. At the same time, as of August 2018, there were a total of 25,979 vape patents worldwide, with 87% in China. Such vape manufacturing foundations undoubtedly provide good ground for these new entrepreneurs. For example, as the largest vape production base, Shenzhen has more than 500 vape production enterprises.

The reporter learned that Suzhou also has a complete vape industry chain. Around JUUL, an international vape well-known brand, many companies are laying out in the fields of engineering plastics, injection molding, hot runners, atomizers, and control panels. Related well-known companies include Dongshan Precision, Ruibang Ceramics, Suzhou Zhuoqun, Zhunda Hot runner, new crystal materials, etc.

At present, many vape brands often use “harmless” as their main selling point when they are propagating, and then harvest a large number of traditional smokers with both the “addictive” and “healthy” attributes of tobacco. However, there is growing evidence that this is not the case.

According to the latest research results from New York University, vape smoke can cause lung cancer and potential bladder cancer in mice, damaging their genes, and also concluded that vape smoke may be "very harmful" to humans.

At the press conference of the "Healthy China Action" Tobacco Control Action held on July 22 this year, Mao Qun'an, director of the Planning Department of the National Health Commission, also said that domestic and foreign studies have found that aerosols produced by vape contain many Poisonous and harmful substances, various additives in e-liquid also pose health risks. In addition, many vape or e-liquid products contain nicotine concentration marks that are fuzzy, which can easily cause users to overdose.

While vape is being questioned by the "harm theory", a new social phenomenon has aroused people's anxiety, that is, young people who have benefited from China's convenient e-commerce sales channels and have been attracted by the "new trend" of vape. , Can easily buy vape, so that the previous decades of smoking and tobacco control efforts promoted by administrative orders almost ruined.

A recent survey by the China Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that the vape usage rate of 1.5-24 years in China was 1.5%, and 45.4% of users purchased vape through Internet channels. On October 10, reporters interviewed 10 young people randomly on the streets of Xinjiekou, Nanjing. Four of them said they were "smokers", two said they tried vape, and the purchase channels were all from the Internet.

"I bought a fruit-flavored e-liquid online, and it tasted very good, and when I bought it, I thought that vape would not harm the body." Respondents responded this way.

Walking along the edge of laws such as the ban on the sale of tobacco by minors, vape's many problems need to be resolved. While the United States and other countries treat vapes "strictly", domestic standards may soon be released.

The reporter consulted the public information and found that the clearest signal on the regulation of vape in China is that at the end of July this year, the National Health Commission and relevant departments conducted a study on the regulation of vape and planned to pass legislation to monitor the vape. At the same time, according to the National Standards Information Network, the vape national standard plan was formulated on October 11, 2017, with a development period of 24 months, and has now entered the "approval" phase. This also means that the national standard of vape is expected to be released as soon as this month.

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