The global disposable e-cigarettes market size is expected to be valued at $6.34 billion in 2022, according to new research.
With growing demand for non-tobacco products owing to rising health concerns among others, the overall demand for disposable e-cigarettes is projected to grow at a CAGR of 11.2 percent between 2022 and 2032, totaling around $18.32 billion by 2032, according to a report from Future Market Insights (FMI).
The rising traction of using disposable e-cigarettes among consumers is expected to accelerate the market in the forthcoming years, according to FMI.
New and innovative products to comply with the growing demand for these products among consumers are being launched by many market players.
In January 2021, Dinner Lady, a U.K.-based vape brand launched a disposable vape pen, for example.
North America dominated the disposable e-cigarettes market and accounted for the maximum revenue share of 49.8 percent in 2021.
The increasing popularity of flavored disposable e-cigarettes offered by brands such as Puff Bar, Vuse, and Suorin, is one of the major factors that is expected to drive the growth of the industry in the region.
Kaival Brands Innovations stock was up slightly today as the company’s stock value has decreased sharply after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued the company marketing denial orders for some of its Bidi Stick flavored products. It’s third-quarter report results sent them even lower. Shares (NASDAQ: KAVL) were down 43 percent to $2.58 after the company reported Q3 earnings results.
Credit: Argus
Tuesday, the company announced its third-quarter report, which stated that the company earned drastically lower revenues of $3.4 million for the three months ended July 31, 2021, compared to $32.4 million for the three months ended July 31, 2020.
The company now expects revenues for the year to be approximately $68 million, as compared to previous guidance of $400 million. The company stated that now that 93 percent of the vaping market has been eliminated by the FDA, the company expects Bidi Vapor’s market share to, at a minimum, reach pre-premarket tobacco product applications (PMTA) levels, according to Market Watch.
“We believe that the [PMTA] process undertaken by the [FDA] has had a significant impact on the e-cigarette industry. Prior to the September 9, 2021 court-ordered deadline for the FDA to make PMTA determinations for pending applications, we believe that many retailers and distributors were reluctant to take on new inventory, the statement reads. “We believe these retailers were concerned with the potential for being left with inventory that after September 9, 2021 could be ruled adulterated or misbranded by the FDA and, thus, illegal to sell.”
The FDA, which had faced a Sept. 9 deadline to declare which e-cigarettes can remain on the market, said last week that it needed more time before making a decision on products from Juul Labs Inc. and other companies.
In August, Kaival said that it expressed strong support of “enforcement of rules and regulations governing the electronic nicotine delivery systems industry” and that it exceeded stringent FDA compliance mandates.
Bidi Vapor also announced it will continue to manufacture and market its Artic (menthol) Bidi Stick in the United States despite receiving a marketing denial order (MDO) for the product, according to a trading update issued by Kaival Brands Innovations Group.
The company said Tuesday that it believes that in the longer term, the removal of all synthetic nicotine products in the U.S. market could prove to be a positive event for it. Based on previous FDA decisions, it said it expects that Bidi Vapor’s naturally derived nicotine products will remain on the market following the completion of the FDA’s premarket tobacco application process.
E-cigarette use in Taiwan has tripled since 2018, reports The Taipei Times, citing a study by the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Health Promotion Administration (HPA).
In 2018, e-cigarette use was at 0.6 percent; in 2020, that rate grew to 1.7 percent, according to the study, which looked at responses from 25,000 people 18 years and older.
The highest e-cigarette use rates were found in men ages 26 to 30, at 6.3 percent, and women ages 21 to 25, at 4.6 percent.
“To put this growth into perspective, use of traditional cigarettes grew only marginally over this period, from 13 percent in 2018 to 13.1 percent in 2020,” said Lu Meng-ying, HPA Tobacco Control Division official. “The situation needs urgent attention, especially as new e-cigarette users are almost all young people.”
Most respondents said they use e-cigarettes out of curiosity while 17.3 percent use them to quit smoking combustible cigarettes and 9.7 percent use them because friends use them.
Use of flavored tobacco products is increasing as well, from 8.2 percent in 2018 to 15.6 percent in 2020. Majority of the increase was seen in women.
“There are more than 1,200 additives used in flavored tobacco products, and the vast majority of them are chemically derived,” Lu said. “The goal of manufacturers is to prevent new smokers, especially young women, from being turned off by foul smells.” He added that the effects of long-term use of flavored products are not well understood.
E-cigarettes have been banned in India since 2019, but the ‘grey’ market continues to grow.
By Vapor Voice staff
There are more than 100 million cigarette smokers in India. The country suffers from over 1 million tobacco-related deaths each year. But Western-style cigarettes account for only a fraction of tobacco consumption in India. According to data from the Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) of 2016–2017, India has the second-largest tobacco-consuming population in the world (China is first). An estimated 267 million Indians use tobacco in some form.
Tobacco also plays a significant role in India’s economy. More than 4.2 million hectares of farmland in India are dedicated to growing tobacco. The government also owns a 28 percent stake in ITC, India’s dominant tobacco company. Currently, there are only 19 smoking cessation centers for the nearly 270 million tobacco users, and there is no national policy to make telemedicine or other medical support available, according to the CDC Foundation.
Under the guise of preventing potential health risks to the country’s youth, India banned the “import, manufacture, sale, advertisement, storage and distribution” of e-cigarettes in September 2019. Ministers at the time said the decision aimed at averting health risks related to e-cigarettes. The Indian vaping ban came amid an updated guidance from the World Health Organization (WHO), which encouraged the prohibition of e-cigarettes. India’s ban does not cover the personal consumption of vaping products, although the rule is ambiguous and doesn’t define personal consumption.
Before the vapor ban, many vapers would purchase their products at tobacco shops, known as paanwalas. These shops sold mostly basic 510-threaded vaping devices, low-quality shisha-flavored e-liquids and cheap closed pod systems, according to sources familiar with vaping in India. Shop owners knew little about tobacco harm reduction (THR) and the role vapor products play. A handful of large importers were supplying the shops, and in 2014, ITC even released its own e-cigarette, Eon, that it marketed through the local shops.
India also had a small fraction of vapers, mostly former smokers, that understood the THR concept of vaping and its purpose as a quit smoking aid. “They opened a few shops and were quality conscious. They wanted to help customers stop smoking combustible cigarettes,” said a former vape shop owner, who asked to remain anonymous due to the illegal nature of vaping products in India. “These shops sold mostly high-end brand devices and e-juices from trusted manufacturers. “Almost all of them had online shops and social media presence and nationwide reach, and a few also had brick-and-mortar stores.”
Then came the ban. India’s legal vaping market abruptly stopped overnight. All websites were shut down immediately, sources said. The law, as written, is strict with severe penalties. Initially, all players in the vaping industry in India were terrified. “After some time passed, with little to no enforcement action, the market began to slowly reemerge,” said another former participant in the Indian vape market. “Vendors returned, although in much smaller numbers. The cheap, low-quality vapes are back at the bigger paanwalas. Often these shops do not care what age a customer is when selling tobacco products.”
Amplifying the issue is that most of the employees running the paanwalas do not possess the knowledge to properly educate customers about the usage and maintenance or the pros and cons of vaping products, according to the former vape store owner. “This market needs restrictions and regulations. The less educated, less privileged masses perceive vapes as just another way to exhale dense clouds,” he said. “Also, this market is less afraid of the law because, in most places, the local police have arrangements with small stalls/shops/kiosks of all kinds, where they collect a weekly fee (called a hafta) to look the other way when they flout rules.”
Vaping products are even being displayed on some store shelves now in India. A few of the biggest paanwalas in the cosmopolitan cities reportedly sell Juul and other high-end hardware. It’s not plainly obvious everywhere, and the specialist “vape only” vendors are all clandestine. Most of the specialists are discerning and do not entertain new customers without a reference from a known customer.
“The black market is not large at present. However, as India has a huge population (1.4 billion), even ‘not large’ can be sizable. Unofficial estimates say India had a million vapers before the ban, and there are still approximately 200,000 to 300,000 vapers in the country,” the former market player said. “The penalty for selling vapes to anyone—even an adult—is up to three years in prison and fines up to INR500,000 ($6,700). You will be amazed to know that the penalty for selling [combustible] cigarettes to a minor is only INR200 ($2.75) with no imprisonment. How is this allowed?”
According to Anupam Manur, an assistant professor of Economics at the Takshashila Institution in Bengaluru, banning vapor products has caused the government to lose all controls over the products.
“If a seller is selling an illegal product anyway, what difference would the age of buyer make—whether it is above or below 18 years?” Manur wrote in Business Insider. “Furthermore, since it is illegal, would it make sense for a seller to ensure product quality and safety? There have been numerous reports of substandard and potentially dangerous products being sold in India on the black market,” he said. “It would behoove the government to learn the lessons from the U.K. and the U.S. and choose a harm reduction approach, which would involve developing a regulatory plan for e-cigarettes that maximizes smoking cessation among adults while limiting youth uptake.”
The WHO was more enthusiastic about India’s approach, even giving Indian Health Minister Harsh Vardhan a top award for pushing the policy. Vardhan is a former WHO advisor and was until recently the chair of WHO’s executive board, and hence deeply steeped in the WHO’s anti-THR stance. “His leadership was instrumental in the 2019 national legislation to ban e-cigarettes & heated-tobacco products,” tweeted the WHO secretary-general, Tedros Ghebreyesus, after announcing the award. “Thank you, minister!”
Samrat Chowdhery, director of the Association of Vapers India (AVI) and president of the International Network of Nicotine Consumer Organizations, a global consumer advocacy group comprising 40 national and regional bodies, does not expect anything to change in India’s vapor market any time soon.
Samrat Chowdhery
Politics aside, the negative impact of the ban will become clear in time, he says, adding that the nations that have embraced vaping products as THR tools are reaping the rewards of accelerated smoking declines after allowing (and in some cases encouraging) smokers to make the switch.
Countries that have experienced lower health costs because they have embraced vaping products and invested in THR may one day offer enough evidence to force a shift in India’s policy toward e-cigarettes, according to Chowdhery. “Currently, Thailand is the only other major country in Asia that bans safer nicotine inhalation alternatives, and it is worth noting along with India, it too has a state-run tobacco enterprise which is facing competition from replacement products,” said Chowdhery. “China is moving toward regulation too. This ‘ban group’ is likely to shrink further over time.”
If electronic nicotine-delivery system products continue to be available in some form in India, the number of ex-smokers who have switched will continue to grow, according to Chowdhery. With the ban slowing this transition and potentially even halting it, he believes at some point the vaping ban will create its own critical mass to call for a rethink.
“Another possibility is that the courts intervene and either discard the law altogether or create caveats which render the law infructuous. Such challenges require substantial financial backing, which established commerce in this field can support,” said Chowdhery. “The courts have so far been reluctant to delve into this issue because of the emotional ‘think of the children’ pitch attached to it, but over time, rationality and pragmatism will win over. A country with this large of a tobacco problem cannot for long ignore effective measures to reduce related mortality and morbidity.”
