Market Share Between Vuse and Juul Continues to Widen

The market share between Vuse and Juul e-cigarettes continues to grow, according to the latest Nielsen analysis of convenience-store data.

The analysis, released Tuesday, covers the four-week period ending Aug. 13.

According to Barclays, Nielsen largely covers the big chains. For the smaller chains, the group extrapolates trends, which is why trend changes don’t appear immediately in Nielsen.

In recent months, the shadow of a potential banning of Juul Labs Inc.’s e-cigarettes from U.S. retail shelves has accelerated the market-share gains of R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co.’s Vuse brand.

Vuse’s market share rose from 37.4 percent in the previous report to 39 percent, compared with Juul declining from 30.7 percent to 29.4 percent.

Meanwhile, No. 3 NJoy dropped 3 percent to 2.9 percent, while Fontem Ventures’ blu eCigs slipped from 1.7 percent to 1.6 percent percent.

Juul’s four-week dollar sales in the latest report have dropped from a 50.2 percent increase in the Aug. 10, 2019, report to a 20.1 percent decline in the latest report, according to the Winston-Salem Journal.

By comparison, Reynolds’ Vuse was up 39.8 percent in the latest report, while NJoy was down 11.5 percent and blu eCigs down 29.9 percent.

Goldman Sachs analyst Bonnie Herzog wrote in her Tuesday note to investors that Juul’s market share decline occurred in part “following confusion around the FDA’s marketing denial order against Juul.”

Juul still maintains a 33.7 percent to 32.6 percent market-share lead over the previous 52 weeks.