The direction of China’s electronic cigarette industry in 2022

The current e-cigarette market environment, China vape brand owners with R&D and production capabilities can not only have more market space, but also increase their enthusiasm for absorbing new technologies. In addition, for brand owners with a certain number of sales terminals and channel providers, their ability to control the market will gradually stabilize, and then lead the upgrading and iteration of industry product types.

1. R&D capability

At present, the national penetration rate of e-cigarette users in the United States has risen to 5.5%, while the user penetration rate in China is just over 1%. However, the ratio of per capita e-cigarette consumption to per capita GDP in the United States is no more than 1%, while that in China is close to 2%. It can be seen that Chinese e-cigarette users are more sensitive to the technological attributes of their products than overseas, so the adjustment direction of e-cigarette products should be based on their technical content, and research and development capabilities will become the key factor to break the situation in the future, which is the essential of the second growth of the industry.

2. Product Matrix

At present, the most mainstream cartridge-based pod systems on the market are divided into two parts: atomizing device and atomizing pod. The two product forms focus on different technical requirements for electronic cigarette products. Among them, the device, as a durable product, is the brain of the electronic cigarette, and it is crucial to the performance of the electronic cigarette, so it’s electronic and intelligence are the elements for the future electronic cigarette enterprises to grasp the market initiative. In terms of the basic product framework of the cartridge-baed vapes, different sections are combined to reflect the four research and development points of electronic cigarettes: heating technology, atomization technology, flavor taste and appearance design.

3. Sales terminal channels and channel management

In terms of product flavor innovation and user groups, young people aged 18-25 are highly receptive to new flavors such as fruits and desserts, and users aged 36-45 are most receptive to traditional tobacco and tea flavors. The 26-35-year-old group has no obvious preference for taste changes, which shows that this group is the main group for product innovation in the e-cigarette industry, and their consuming power is relatively strong, so they can have sufficient funds to experience and accept new products. It can be seen that the product adjustment of China’s electronic cigarette industry needs to be deeply cultivated in the main user group of 26-35 years old.

At the same time, electronic cigarettes, as mature consumer products, have grown up based on existing scientific research and industrial basic capabilities. Therefore, if electronic cigarette or vape brands want to innovate, they need to extend their scientific research capabilities to the most basic, such as chemistry, material science, etc. Metal Ceramics atomizing core have appeared overseas. In terms of battery life, some companies have developed new batteries (graphene) R&D.