Since the issuance of Document No. 61 by the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration in 2022, domestic private heat-not-burn herbal cigarette enterprises have turned their attention overseas. Appliance manufacturing enterprises must obtain production licenses and can only conduct domestic wholesale sales or export overseas. This has indeed dealt a heavy blow to the industry. Heat-not-burn cigarette manufacturing enterprises have begun to move overseas one after another (of course, some enterprises have also undergone transformation). After nearly 1 to 2 years of restoration and construction, 2024 can be regarded as the first year for private heat-not-burn cigarette production enterprises to truly start production overseas.
Many enterprises (brands or traders) in the e-cigarette industry have utilized their overseas e-cigarette channels to also assist relevant Chinese tobacco enterprises in expanding the market promotion of heat-not-burn cigarettes. More often than not, they are actually seeking a second growth curve when the growth of their e-cigarette business is sluggish. Of course, it is not excluded that they use the products of China Tobacco enterprises for trial runs and then have the intention to entrust others to manufacture products under their own brands later. In 2024, the heat-not-burn products of many e-cigarette brands were launched on the market. However, the results achieved were rather limited. There is no other reason but that they knew too little about this industry and emphasized the power of channels too much while neglecting technological and product strength. There are only a few enterprises that can truly regard heat-not-burn as an area with high technological thresholds. For example, Company S has established a research institute, and most of its core R&D personnel have professional backgrounds in the tobacco field. Company C has developed its own patented technology advantage in the sponge-like cigarette structure and won the favor of large overseas tobacco companies. It is predicted that it will obtain a 1% market share in 2025. Company J has given full play to its channel advantages and the advantage of rapid mass production of the sixth generation, and production capacity has become a bottleneck.
Review of 2024: At the beginning of 2024, it was predicted that the heat-not-burn industry would resume new growth, and this has been verified by the first three quarterly reports of PMI, as well as the layouts and business operations of JTI and several large tobacco companies.
Based on cigarette structures such as flakes (ordered and disordered), granules, sponge-like, and honeycomb-like forms, new structural forms will emerge. The core logic lies in mass production efficiency and consistency, and more importantly, emphasis should be placed on release without being restricted by forms.
The technological direction or patent breakthrough points must focus on the joint cooperation between cigarettes and smoking devices. Only in this way can the thinking space be expanded.
Whether the appliances adopt heating methods such as infrared, air energy, microwave, light wave, electromagnetic, or resistance is just a superficial manifestation. What cannot be denied is the fact of heating. Generally speaking, any solution that realizes low energy consumption and easy temperature control is a good one.
Tobacco, herbal materials, etc. are the base materials. The better they can absorb and release more flavoring substances (including tobacco extracts) and the fewer foreign flavors they have, the better the base materials are. Turning heat-not-burn products into e-cigarette forms is the future trend.
Unexpectedly, the cigarette products first launched by BAT in Serbia on November 25, 2024, actually adopted the honeycomb structure.
PMI uses high-absorption paper directly as the substrate for its herbal brands LEVIA and Axia.
Prediction 2025: The four core concepts will continue to be deepened and strengthened, and the phenomenon of heat-not-burn e-cigarettes may become a new development path this year.
source：雾影智库
电子雾化与HNB产品都是新型电子产品，结构虽小，却融合应用多种材料、表面处理、芯片电子等技术工艺，而且雾化技术一直在不断更迭，供应链在逐步完善，为了促进供应链企业间有一个良好的对接交流，艾邦搭建产业微信群交流平台，欢迎加入；Vape e-cigarettes (VAPE) and Heat-Not-Burn e-cigarettes (HNB) are both emerging electronic products. Despite their compact size, they integrate various materials, surface treatment technologies, chip electronics, and other advanced technical processes. Moreover, atomization technology is constantly evolving and the supply chain is being progressively perfected. To facilitate good communication and networking among supply chain enterprises, Aibang has established an industry WeChat group communication platform and warmly welcomes interested enterprises to join.
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