We need to talk about….. The e-cig
industry
Posted on October 7, 2014 by admin
By Tom Pruen
If you read many of
the publications about ecigs, you could easily assume that almost all e-cigs
are sold by, or on behalf of, the tobacco industry.
As with all too much
of the generally accepted wisdom, this is fundamentally incorrect. It is true
that the big tobacco companies have entered the e-cig market, with the first
acquisition in 2012[7]. The UK market, on
the other hand started to take off in 2009. A significant number of the
business in the sector are Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs), and many of
these were founded by early adopters of e-cigs, who felt obligated to share the
discovery they made (and, of course, make some money as well). As the market
grows, there will be more entrants who are purely in it for business reasons,
but there continues to be significant involvement from passionate vapers, and
indeed many of the companies with multiple retail outlets preferentially employ
vapers as they already have a significant knowledge (as well as considerable
enthusiasm) about the products, reducing training time and cost.
It is easy to see why
the involvement of the tobacco industry, given the past history that they have,
would be of concern to practitioners of Public Health (and Tobacco Control in
particular). However, regardless of what the corporate desires of the
multinational tobacco companies are, if there is a significant, innovative,
independent e-cig industry, with no desire to sell tobacco products,
competition must drive all companies selling e-cigs to compete for market
share. Appropriate age limits and marketing regulation should force this
competition to be for existing smokers (or to encourage existing vapers to
change brand – one of the primary purposes of advertising, but one which is
often ignored).
There is also a
financial benefit from the number of small companies active in the sector –
SMEs lack the structure and knowledge that reduces the tax paid by large
multinationals, and so pay a higher proportion of tax[8][9]. Because of the duplication of posts across multiple small
companies, they also employ more staff proportionate to turnover.
Bottom line: There a
wide range of companies in the e-cig market, many are (comparatively) small,
they are very heterogeneous, and this is a good thing!
[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-28554456
[2]
http://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2014/03/20/simon-chapman-why-is-big-tobacco-investing-in-e-cigarettes/
[3]
http://www.drugfree.org/join-together/tobacco-companies-move-into-e-cigarette-business/
[4] http://online.wsj.com/articles/coming-soon-to-theaters-near-you-e-cigarettes-1410748204
[5]
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2014/sep/01/smoking-tobacco-ecigarettes-public-health
[6] http://www.nzdoctor.co.nz/news/2014/october-2014/07/e-cigarettes-put-smoke–free-nz-at-risk,-says–industry-whistleblower.aspx
[7]
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/business/industries/consumer/article3636390.ece
[8]
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2011/03/02/its-true-small-business-really-does-pay-tax-at-higher-rates-than-big-business-in-the-uk/
Find the original
article at-
Thank you for taking time out of your day to read our blog.
---------------------Find Us------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment