According to foreign reports, Juul labs said recently that it will terminate its operations in South Korea one year after entering the market. The company pointed out that the reason was that it was unable to gain market share in the government’s health warning.
Since the beginning of this year, Juul labs has been working through the restructuring process to rebuild viable business in South Korea by significantly reducing costs and making changes to its products, Juul labs said in a statement.
However, these innovations will not be delivered as expected, the statement said. Therefore, we intend to stop our business in Korea.
In October last year, South Korea’s Ministry of health advised people to stop using e-cigarettes because of growing health concerns, especially when a 30-year-old e-cigarette user reported pneumonia, Reuters news reported.
The announcement prompted convenience store chains and duty-free stores to suspend sales of flavored liquid e-cigarettes, including those produced by Juul labs.
According to Reuters, South Korean health authorities said in December that they found vitamin E acetate, which may be related to lung disease, in some liquid electronic cigarette products produced by Juul labs, but the company denied using the material.
Juul labs launched a product portfolio specifically developed for the Korean market in May 2019, but we did not perform as expected to meet the needs of our Korean adult smokers for a successful transition from combustible cigarettes, the statement said. We have studied this process and are committed to innovating our product portfolio.
According to reports, Juul labs is also preparing to withdraw from several national markets in the EU, claiming that the regulatory environment has been overly hostile to the device.
