Vuse Quickly Narrowing Market Share Gap With Juul

Vuse is now only 4.2 percent of the market behind Juul. According to a Nielsen analysis of convenience store data, covering the four-week period ending Dec. 4, Juul was at 38.2 percent, down from 38.8 percent in the previous report. Vuse, however, held steady with 34 percent of the market.

NJoy was at 3 percent, unchanged from the previous report, while Fontem Ventures’ blu eCigs was at 2.4 percent, also unchanged, according to a Winston-Salem Journal report. Overall, sales of electronic cigarettes were up 6.7 percent year over year for the latest four-week period, boosted by recent price hikes.

Juul’s four-week dollar sales have dropped from a 50.2 percent increase in the Aug. 10, 2019, report to a 9.7 percent decline in the latest report. By comparison, Reynolds’ Vuse was up 50.1 percent in the latest report, while No. 3 NJoy was down 23.2 percent and No. 4 blu eCigs down 13.8 percent.

Goldman Sachs analyst Bonnie Herzog has said that NJoy “refutes Nielsen’s data and methodology.”

On Oct. 12, the FDA issued a landmark ruling in approving a Vuse Solo product as appropriate to market to smokers from a public-health standpoint. The FDA’s order covers the tobacco flavor of the Vuse Solo closed electronic nicotine delivery system, its power unit and two replacement cartridges.

However, the FDA rejected submissions for 10 flavored Vuse Solo products. It said it “is still evaluating” the company’s application for menthol-flavored products for Vuse Solo.

Reynolds has said the FDA’s orders “confirm that Vuse Solo products are appropriate for the protection of the public health, underscoring years of scientific study and research dedicated to ensuring that adult nicotine consumers age 21+ have access to innovative and potentially less harmful alternatives to traditional tobacco products.”