7 enterprise leaders’ opinions on the electronic cigarette industry

China’s e-cigarette industry is ushering in the best and worst “window period”. For start-ups, if it is difficult to strictly require themselves in terms of quality control, it is likely to be completely out in the next industry reshuffle. We collected the opinions of the best e-cig company leaders. Let’s take a look.

Snowplus electronic cigarette co founder, Wang Sa

Snowplus vape entered the field relatively late, but the team gathered a number of senior people in the e-cigarette , Internet, FMCG, tobacco and alcohol industries, and the brand also launched the pod system in a short period of time. We believe that for domestic users, e-cigarettes are still a new type of fast consumer goods at this stage, and there are still many curiosity and misunderstanding about this kind of products. When the public has a deeper understanding of this kind of products, then the market has the opportunity to usher in a new round of explosion.

According to the data of China Industrial Research Institute in 2017, the penetration rate of e-cigarettes in China is less than 1%, compared with 13% in the United States, which means that there are still many smokers who do not have access to and accept e-cigarettes, which are relatively less harmful and more convenient to use. We hope that with the efforts of SnowPlus and other e-cigarette companies, if the penetration rate is 5%, it means not only great progress in public health, but also huge market space.

Of course, a large number of e-cigarette brands in the domestic market are controversial due to the quality and safety of the good and the bad. Some e-cigarette brands have not even passed the safety test of the spices added to the cigarette liquid. We look forward to the national standard to regulate and supervise the electronic cigarette industry as soon as possible.

Co founder and head of RELX sales channel, Jiang Long

The e-cigarette products themselves hope to bring better smoking experience for smokers, so RELX hopes to think from the perspective of users from the start of the business and make “meet the needs of different races and cultural backgrounds” smokers, rather than simply “show off their skills”.

First, the most important key word is “restraint”. In the past, we have seen that some e-cigarette manufacturers have attracted many non smokers or teenagers because of their strategic problems in publicity, which has brought a very bad social impact. RELX denies many “Internet” marketing methods in strategic planning, which reduces the possibility of non-smokers’ access to e-cigarettes to the greatest extent.

In addition, RELX officially launched the PMTA program in September 2019. At present, it has started to establish a specialized PMTA team in the United States. The team members include 15 internal and external expert teams including toxicology experts, clinical medicine experts, lawyers, sociologists, FDA project experts, etc.

PMTA (pre market tobacco application). Any ends (electronic nicotine delivery systems) after August 8, 2016 must obtain PMTA before it can be sold in the US market. In the past 20 years, only iqos and snus of Sweden have passed the PMTA.

Similar measures have also been implemented in RELX. The reason is that we hope to continuously improve the safety of e-cigarettes and bring this product to the users who really need it.

Founder and CEO of LOVEVAPE electronic cigarette, Yuan Jia

LOVEVAPE core team worked in Boton Group (the largest e-cigarette flavor provider in China) around 2011. I also do the work of flavoring myself. It takes 10 years of training for a junior flavorer to be qualified, which is also the threshold of e-cigarette industry. In 2012, we began to serve Smoore, an e-cigarette company, and the brand of “21st century e-cigarette”. During the period of e-cigarettes sales in the United States in the 21st century, the long-term sales of convenience stores ranked the top three in the market.

When the first product was launched in 2017, we focused on the overseas market, and the team was not very optimistic about ceramic atomization core technology, which to some extent led to LOVEVAPE missing the domestic industry trend. However, from the beginning of the brand, LOVEVAPE paid more attention to the “smoking” itself, so our investment also focused more on the taste.

In addition to the investment in research and development, the team also found the changes in the electronic cigarette industry over the years. The first thing is that after the rise of pod vapes, the user demand is no longer just to pursue subculture, but to seek a new way of smoking.

The advantage of LOVEVAPE lies in years of deep cultivation, which enables us to accumulate starter kits and vape juice products for different markets. In the future, we hope to work with the industry to enable more people to correctly understand e-cigarettes and enable users to experience more suitable e-cigarettes products according to their own needs.

Director of IECIE project team Li Wangfeng

IECIE e-cigarette exhibition has been successfully held for 5 years, including 5 IECIE Shenzhen International e-cigarette Industry Expo and 2 IECIE Shanghai vape culture week. With the development and transformation of China’s e-cigarette industry, IECIE is the witness of the progress of the whole e-cigarette industry. In the process of holding e-cigarette exhibition, we also found some changes in the industry. For example, in the past few years, users and dealers were still limited to the “subculture” effect brought by e-cigarette.

The upcoming IECIE e-cigarette Exhibition Shanghai station is focusing on the new ecological e-cigarette exhibition in the field of heat not burn and functional e-cigarette. It is committed to the in-depth exploration, promotion and innovation of the industry, expanding the influence of e-cigarette culture in the public field, leading the industrial structure upgrading and creating a new e-cigarette ecology.

Shanghai station will conduct in-depth analysis and exhibition of the industry from the perspective of exhibition and conference. In 2018, it will attract 30 + tobacco companies and 500 + brands from around the world; in 2019, we will select the location in Shanghai New International Expo Center, with an area of 23000 square meters, which will attract 1000 + brands to participate.

In the future, IECIE hopes to continue to accompany the industry forward.

Founder of Langyan, Cheng Yiyu

Many people may be unfamiliar with the name “Langyan”, but when it comes to “AN” vape, people in the e-cigarette industry may know it. As a “veteran” in the electronic cigarette industry, Langyan team has been engaged in the design, development and sales of electronic cigarette products since 2010, and many of its series products have been sold to many countries in Europe and the United States.

Around 2010, the foreign e-cigarette market is in a rapid development stage. Although there was no nicotine salt technology at that time, oil leakage, poor atomization taste and other problems still need to be optimized, but relevant policies have begun to be implemented in Europe and the United States, so we chose “go overseas”.

In 2016, we found that mod vape users in China have gradually formed a scale, because many foreign users brought electronic cigarette back to China and became popular, so Langyan decided to start the business facing the domestic market. At that time, the box mod e-cigarette also preferred the subculture pursued by young people, which can also be said to be a trend, but it lacks the function of relieving addiction for cigarettes, and needs to be studied and played for a long time, which is not suitable for rapid popularization.

At this stage, the domestic e-cigarettes (especially small cigarettes) market has begun to break out. From last year to this year, we have launched disposable e-cigarettes and pod system e-cigarettes, but also encountered a lot of vicious competition in the industry. In the future, we hope that the industry can work together to make e-cigarettes continue to move forward in accordance with the rules.

36 Kr Vice President Ma Jinnan

The “capital winter” in 2018 has caused a lot of anxiety in the venture capital circle for a while. During this period, e-cigarettes broke out, attracting the attention of many venture capitalists. Then, from the media point of view, in addition to the huge market demand of e-cigarette itself, its technological progress is also one of the important reasons for the explosion of the market.

Of course, any emerging industry will encounter various problems in the initial stage. From this point of view, e-cigarette is even better. It is not only facing the pressure of market competition, but also policy supervision, moral hazard and safety control will be the focus of the industry in the next few years.

36 Kr, as the leading venture capital media and enterprise service platform in China, will actively participate in various activities of the e-cigarette industry, go deep into all links of the industry chain, discuss the future with the industry together, bring more accurate and professional reports to the followers, and jointly promote the healthy development of the e-cigarette industry.

Founder and CEO of Kaishan Liquor Industry Tang Wei,

Kaishan Liquor Industry is located in the high-end pioneer liquor of new Chinese style, which refers to innovation in brewing technology and flavor type, while pioneer refers to inheritance and “exploration” of liquor culture for thousands of years. On the one hand, Kaishan Liquor Industry inherits the traditional culture of Chinese liquor; on the other hand, Kaishan Liquor Industry has carried out new exploration in both technology taste and brand building.

In fact, for the liquor industry, it is difficult to make innovative products and brands, so many people choose to “earn fast money”, but I think the popular trend comes and goes fast, and success only belongs to the last enterprise. As a traditional fast consumer goods, tobacco and wine have similarities in market channels, user scenarios and other aspects. Kaishan Liquor Industry hopes to actively communicate with related industries and jointly provide better products and services for users.