Since October, the e-cigarette industry has been in turmoil, with global blockbusters, investigation to giants, and tickets in Shenzhen… What kind of reaction will the electronic cigarette industry with great opportunities have?
Recently, Wang Chunrong, former executive of Smoore and founder and CEO of YOOFUN, told China investment network that based on his ten-year experience and sense of smell, these crises are only “small events” in the development of electronic cigarette industry.
The global crackdown, led by the US seven state ban on smoking, is just a small matter (not a big deal)
Wang Chunrong has just participated in the e-cigarette exhibition in Europe. He told Chinanet that the U.S. sales ban has an impact on the international market. We have become more cautious. But in the history of e-cigarette development, this is just a small thing.
According to him, in 2010, the U.S. FDA directly banned the sale of e-cigarettes, which means that it has no legal status. Now, e-cigarettes are legal, only some flavors are banned, so in general, e-cigarettes are safe. At present, the United States has two voices, one for support and the other for opposition. Proponents believe that e-cigarettes are much less harmful than real cigarettes, while opponents believe that e-cigarettes are more harmful.
E-cigarettes have been developing in the United States for more than ten years, and the negative events have all concentrated in the past two months. Wang Chunrong believes that it may be related to marijuana. “If electronic cigarettes were so harmful, they would have been banned for years, but they didn’t.” He said that the final reason still needs objective and real data analysis. However, it should affect China’s policy that the United States may only allow the sale of tobacco and mint flavors, which can reduce the harm to teenagers, which is a good thing from this perspective.
According to the approval draft of the national standard plan “electronic cigarette”, in the aspect of e-liquid, the standard plan is expected to prohibit the use of substances with special functions, such as claiming to be beneficial to health, increasing energy or reducing harm, etc., and the national standard of food safety for e-liquid additives should meet the requirements. In addition, the nicotine concentration in e-liquid will also be clearly specified, with the content of 2% mg. Many brands have exceeded this value, but Wang Chunrong said that YOOFUN is very capable of prediction, and the 1.0 version of the product is already within this range. From the product point of view, the national standard is also a good thing for standardized brands.
E-cigarette is a long-distance race track, which will develop towards brand in the future
At present, the development direction of e-cigarettes is that there are many tastes, which leads to too many additives, and it is also one of the reasons why the e-cigarettes giant Juul was investigated. Wang Chunrong believes that in the future, like traditional tobacco, e-cigarettes will become the direction of brand development. One brand is a single taste. Consumers only recognize the brand that suits their own taste, rather than like now. Consumers will be tired of smoking one taste and need to change it often.
Based on this judgment, he believes that e-cigarette is a long-distance race track, which has not been finalized either in terms of products or in terms of industry. Although the influx of capital has promoted the development of the industry and made many people understand the industry, most people do not know the core of the industry, especially the direction of development.
Wang Chunrong feels that the technological iteration and development of e-cigarettes have changed very fast this year, which is also a blessing of capital inflow. The Fund helps the industry to introduce a large number of marketing talents and playing methods, but also helps technological progress. For example, the structure of pods has not changed for many years, and now many brands hire engineers with high salaries for R & D and improvement.
Have technology, have future
However, no matter how fast the development is, before the national standard is issued, the development is limited, more capital dare not enter, and the real opportunities have not yet showed up. We must wait until the policy is clear and the e-cigarettes are regulated to a certain category before we can see the moment of resolution. “By that time, the market will be fair, and whoever has the technology will have the future.” Wang Chunrong said that even if capital comes out to crush technology, technology is a kind of capital.
At present, there are two opinions on the market, one is that e-cigarette is a high-tech product with a high threshold; the other is that e-cigarette is only an assembled product with core technology in the hands of atomizer manufacturers and e-liquid manufacturers, with a low threshold for brand manufacturers. According to Wang Chunrong, no good electronic cigarette can be made by an e-liquid manufacturer because it does not know the hardware technology, and no good electronic cigarette can be made by an atomizer manufacturer because it does not know the core of an e-liquid manufacturer.
For brands like him, YOOFUN uses a set of VTS system, which can combine the technologies of both sides to the best, and make full use of the high matching of electronic scheme + structure + material + vape juice, so as to achieve the best taste and experience. This matching should be one with one, not one with N, which is the main reason why e-cigarettes may develop into brands in the future. He believes that each product should have its own positioning and matching degree, which is the most dangerous. According to his sources, e-liquid is composed of natural oils and synthetic flavor oils. The latter is more fragrant and cheap, and becomes the choice of most brands. And the natural ingredient is to insist on the use of natural e-liquid, because the VTS system can make the balance between taste and health to reach the best degree.
According to him, the reason why YOOFUN didn’t announce its official listing and continued trial sales is that it hopes to optimize the best taste matching degree through a large number of consumer feedback iterations, and find out the most matching crowd, so that it can really break out, and the market will come naturally, rather than become a fake prosperity like the previous two development rounds of domestic electronic cigarettes.
Wang Chunrong, former executive of Smoore, founder and CEO of YOOFUN, has been deeply involved in the electronic cigarette industry for more than ten years. Wang Chunrong has a deep relationship with Smoore. He began to contact the electronic cigarette industry in 2009 and participated in the establishment of the private brand Vaporesso, which is the core backbone of the world’s largest electronic cigarette manufacturer.
