Category: iQOS

Recently, the four major international tobacco giants Philip Morris International, British American Tobacco, Imperial Tobacco, and Japan Tobacco have successively released their 2020 annual reports.

From the financial report data, the four tobacco companies present a situation of “two happy ones and two sad ones”: Philip Morris International and British American Tobacco, which have deployed new tobacco businesses early, have gained steady growth, while Imperial Tobacco, which is hesitant to transform and has tactical mistakes. The decline of Imperial Tobacco and Japan Tobacco is beginning to show.

1. Happy Philip Morris International and British American Tobacco: new tobacco has an early arrangeemnt and strong growth

Philip Morris International and British American Tobacco, which have focused on new tobacco technology and product innovation for many years, will usher in further market recognition in 2020.

Philip Morris International’s annual operating income increased by 15.3%. Behind the growth momentum, the company is increasingly relying on the market performance of new types of tobacco. The financial report shows that Philip Morris International’s cigarette shipments in 2020 will drop by 11.1%. However, shipments of new tobacco products increased by 27.6%.

Among them, the main product IQOS contributed 23.8% to the company’s revenue. In the global market (excluding China and the United States), the market share of IQOS increased by 1.7% to 6.1%. Philip Morris International estimates that by the end of 2020, the total number of global IQOS users is about 17.6 million, of which 12.7 million users have completely switched to IQOS and quit smoking successfully. The company also predicts that by 2025, the contribution of new tobacco products to the company’s total revenue will increase to more than 50%.

British American Tobacco’s new tobacco business also contributed to the company’s profit growth for the first time. According to the 2020 annual report, although British American Tobacco’s annual operating income fell 0.4% year-on-year, its net profit increased by 4.8%.

According to the 2020 annual report, the revenue of new tobacco businesses, including vaping e-cigarette products Vuse, Velo and heat-not-burn product Glo, increased by 15% year-on-year to £1.5 billion, of which the vaping e-cigarette business increased by 52.3%. Currently, the number of users of the company’s new tobacco products has reached 13.5 million, a year-on-year increase of 30%. British American Tobacco predicts that this number will further increase to 50 million by 2030.

The two companies with good growth momentum have already resolutely deployed new tobacco business and continued to invest heavily. Since 2016, Philip Morris International has defined the company’s vision as “creating a smoke-free future”, and even recently investors have predicted that many countries will completely stop cigarette sales within 10 to 15 years. Similarly, British American Tobacco invested nearly 1 billion pounds in this field last year, and is expected to contribute 5 billion pounds in sales to the company by 2025.

When the two tobacco giants were looking forward to 2021, they mentioned the product concept of “beyond nicotine” (not only nicotine) at the same time, and emphasized the need to “further shift to a better and more sustainable business” and “transform into technology and Innovative company”. This seems to mean that the tobacco giant has begun to continue to expand the market imagination of the new tobacco industry itself, such as nicotine-free products, atomizing medical and other fields, and it is very likely to become the next stop in the transformation.

2. The sad Imperial Tobacco and Japan Tobacco: Can layoffs and senior management shift be able to reverse the decline?

In contrast, Japan Tobacco and Imperial Tobacco are clearly behind.

According to Japan Tobacco’s 2020 financial report and 2021 performance outlook, the company’s 2020 profit will fall by 6.6%, and it is expected that in 2021, profit will continue to decline by 22.6%.

At the same time, Japan Tobacco also announced a plan for layoffs. The company said that due to the decline in sales of traditional cigarettes, it plans to merge the international tobacco business with the Japanese domestic tobacco business and lay off 1,000 employees. On the other hand, it will increase investment in risk reduction products, such as heat-not-burn products, and plan to launch new products in 2021 to improve its competitiveness in Japan.

Japan is the world’s largest market for heat-not-burn products. Philip Morris International’s IQOS launched in 2014 has quickly swept the Japanese market, leading the way. It was not until 2017 that Japan Tobacco launched the heated tobacco product Ploom to compete with it, but it has not been able to completely reverse the situation.

Providing consumers with more competitive products has become a top priority for the company. Recently, Japan Tobacco CEO Masamichi Terabatake said that considering the decline in sales of traditional cigarettes in recent years and the highly uncertain business environment, the company had to make some “difficult and necessary decisions.”

2020 is also a difficult year for Imperial Tobacco. The annual report shows that the company’s 2020 operating income was 7.99 billion pounds, a decrease of 0.1% from 2019. Net profit was 3.53 billion pounds, a decrease from 3.74 billion pounds last year. Although Imperial Tobacco has been trying its best to keep pace with its competitors and actively launch new tobacco products (Blu), the company encountered problems with unsatisfactory product and market mix in 2020, and its stock has fallen by 18% in the past year.

The former CEO of the company resigned in 2019 due to investor pressure due to a severe setback in the US e-cigarette market. The new CEO Stefan Bomhard recently announced his plan for the next five years, saying that he will implement a more “disciplined” new tobacco layout strategy, and carefully adjust its heating tobacco in Europe and e-cigarette strategy in the United States based on market research.

In February, Stefan Bonhard also appointed a new CFO and expressed confidence in the measures taken to improve the operation of next-generation products. However, market analysis believes that compared with Philip Morris International and British American Tobacco, Imperial Tobacco’s new strategy is conservative, and speculated that it may be because the new CEO hopes to stabilize the transition and stabilize the decline.

3. On the eve of the change in the international tobacco landscape, opportunities for Chinese companies emerged

It is not difficult to see that the transition period from the traditional tobacco industry to new types of tobacco has arrived. British American Tobacco CEO Jack Bowles said in an interview with the Financial Times that “the cigarette market is currently declining at an average annual rate of 3%.” As harm reduction has gradually become an important development direction and research and development hotspot for the tobacco industry , The demand and market potential of new tobacco are huge.

The global tobacco market (excluding the Chinese market) long occupied by the four major tobacco giants has therefore entered a period of transformation. Whether to firmly turn the bow in time and transform the new tobacco business has undoubtedly become a watershed in changing the international competitive landscape.

In this great transformation of trans-epochal significance, opportunities are also in the hands of Chinese companies. China is the world’s largest e-cigarette production base, and it is in an absolute leading position in the upper and middle reaches of the industrial chain. The export value in 2019 has reached 76.585 billion yuan. The global e-cigarette market has always shown a pattern of “production in China and consumption in Europe and America”.

In recent years, this pattern is gradually being broken. Some Chinese companies such as China Tobacco, Wuxin Technology (RELX‘s parent company), Smoore International and other companies are entering the international market with their technology accumulation and influential domestic brands. Chinese companies are relying on the innovation of new types of tobacco to open the door to the long-closed global tobacco market and gradually show their competitiveness.

In the latest market value ranking of leading companies in the tobacco and new tobacco industries that have been publicly listed in the world, Philip Morris International has a market value of US$126 billion, while Chinese companies Smoore International and Wuxin Technology have respectively received US$58 billion and US$38 billion, ranking fourth and fifth.

But to further fight for the right to speak in this global competition, solid technology accumulation is needed. The latest report issued by the US Patent Office shows that in the field of innovation, the number of patent applications for new tobacco technology has ranked second. Philip Morris International and other companies have also accumulated hundreds of thousands of pages of documents to study the health effects of their products from the aspects of toxicology, clinical, in vitro, and epidemiology.

At present, the China scientific research of atomization inhalation is still in its infancy. According to the prospectus of Wuxin Technology, the company has also set up physical and chemical laboratories and life science laboratories, and has strengthened scientific research investment through measures such as establishing a global scientific research platform, leading the industry to expand its cognitive radius.

It is undeniable that traditional cigarettes are still the mainstream of the global tobacco market, and their position in the Chinese market will be unshakable for a long time. However, whether to firmly deploy and expand advantages in the new tobacco field will directly determine the position of Chinese companies in the future international tobacco industry. Undoubtedly, China must work hard to seize this opportunity to promote and support more and more new tobacco innovation companies to participate in the global market competition from the policy level, and further master this field on the basis of the existing global industrial chain advantages of global value chain.

In 2019, PMI launched a smokeless product called IQOS in the UAE. This product provides a cleaner way to enjoy tobacco by heating instead of burning tobacco, without soot and less odor, consumers can enjoy tobacco while reducing the release of harmful substances.

PMI’s goal is that by 2025, approximately 40 million adults in the world will stop buying traditional cigarettes and switch to heat-not-burn products like IQOS. About half of these converts, or 20 million people, will come from non-OECD countries like the UAE. De Miblas said: “PMI has set ambitious new goals for 2025, including the conversion of more than 40 million adult smokers to smoke-free products by 2025, half of which will come from non-OECD countries.” Talcan De Miblas is the Vice President of the Middle East of Philip Morris International Group.

However, although traditional cigarettes have indeed fallen out of favor, this transformation has not yet taken root, partly because the smoke-free campaign is still relatively in the trial stage. Since 2016, PMI’s annual global shipments of traditional tobacco products have fallen by 114 billion units. At the same time, the number of IQOS users jumped to 14.6 million in the first quarter of 2020, compared with only 7.6 million in the first quarter of 2018.

It is unclear how many smokers in the UAE have abandoned cigarettes and started using smoke-free alternatives. But one thing is clear, in the Middle East and Africa, the consumption of cigarettes and lower-risk alternatives has declined. In the second quarter of this year, everyone was asked to distance themselves from society and avoid parties and other forms of social gatherings. Philip Morris saw its shipments to the Middle East and Africa drop to 27.373 billion pieces, a 15.4% drop from 32.378 billion pieces in the same period last year. However, global shipments of smoke-free alternatives actually increased by 24.3%, from 15.056 billion units in the second quarter of 2019 to 18.708 billion units in the same period this year. As for regional data, PMI said in a report that the decline reflects “decline in cigarette shipments, especially in North Africa”, as well as Turkey, and a decline in duty-free sales.

Despite this, PMI is still confident to achieve its previous goals in various markets, including the UAE, and did not launch IQOS products until July 2019. “In 2019, the UAE became the first country in the Gulf Cooperation Council to regulate smoke-free products. This opened the door for IQOS and HETTS (a heating tobacco device specially designed for IQOS holders) to be put on the market, thereby providing a chance for adulthood. Smokers provide better alternatives to continuing to smoke. Given that these products have only been on the market for a year, it is difficult to determine their overall impact. But we are very satisfied with consumer acceptance and demand for our heating products.”

De Miblas said they are making “great progress” towards their vision of a smoke-free future. He pointed out that PMI’s IQOS has been commercialized in 57 markets. In just five years, 14.6 million smokers have used this product. Importantly, 73% of customers have completely changed their smoking habits and have given up smoking traditional cigarettes.

“Our goal is that by 2025, smoke-free products will account for 30% of our transportation, which is equivalent to approximately 40 million smokers worldwide using these products. Although it is difficult to predict the timing of this transition, there is a common vision Countries, including the UAE, this is a key market for us (promoting smoke-free products), and we may envision completely replacing cigarettes within a few years,” De Miblas said.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a decision in July regarding the IQOS modified risk tobacco product (MRTP) application and the three heating device (IQOS tobacco heating system) submitted in December 2016. These Philip Morris International Group companies all are improved. This marks the first time that the US Food and Drug Administration has approved the marketing of MRTP’s heat-not-burn substitutes. The Food and Drug Administration has completed a scientific review of the PMI evidence package and independent research, and has decided to switch from traditional cigarettes to the IQOS system based on its interpretation of U.S. laws, which can significantly reduce users’ exposure to harmful or potentially harmful chemicals .

 

Some time ago, Philip Morris International applied to the Ministry of Finance of Japan to increase the prices of 21 heat not burn cigarette products of “iQOS”.

Recently, Japanese convenience stores posted notices to inform consumers of price increases that will begin on October 1.

In the background of mass production, most products are sold cheaper, but iQOS is getting more and more expensive.

Trying to keep a foothold in a shrinking U.S. market, Big Tobacco has introduced a new smoke-free product that it says is closer than ever in taste, feel and smell to traditional cigarettes.

And for the first time ever, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will allow the company, Philip Morris, to market its electronically heated tobacco product as one that “significantly reduces the production of harmful and potentially harmful chemicals” even as it delivers roughly the same amount of nicotine found in cigarettes.

Philip Morris International’s IQOS is a heated tobacco product. The device heats a tobacco stick to 350 degrees Celsius, but does not burn it — creating a vapor that delivers a nicotine hit. In contrast, vaping or  e-cigarette devices, like those made by Juul, heat flavored liquid that often contains nicotine.

IQOS (pronounced EYE-kose) lasts about six minutes or 14 puffs — roughly the equivalent of a cigarette.

While the tobacco giant promotes it as a less-harmful alternative to cigarettes, some public health experts worry that IQOS will become yet another means to extend smokers’ tobacco habits and appeal to American youth, driving up future health costs and tobacco-related deaths.

Martin King, CEO of PMI America, told Bridge the strategy is to appeal to current smokers, not teens. PMI is launching the product with Altria Group. Altria and Philip Morris split in 2008, but have a joint licensing agreement for IQOS.

IQOS first stepped into the global marketplace in Japan in 2014. At least one study, published last year in the peer-reviewed journal, Tobacco Control, suggests that the IQOS did, in fact, cut into traditional smoking rates, with cigarette sales beginning to “substantially decline” after the introduction of IQOS in all 11 areas in Japan researchers examined.

“We took huge amounts of market share from the competition by being very successful with this product,” King said. “And that allows you to be very successful and very profitable with the market without actually growing the total number of nicotine users.”

IQOS has since expanded to dozens of other countries and most recently stepped into the U.S. via Atlanta; Charlotte, N.C.; and Richmond, Va. In its second-quarter earnings report July 28, Altria announced it would expand to four more U.S. markets in the next 18 months.

King wouldn’t say if Michigan is one of those markets, but PMI America spokesman Corey Henry said the company is reaching out to “have conversations” in Michigan and other markets where “there is a pretty active debate on the best way to regulate new products.”

Michigan made national news last year when, in an unexpected move, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer banned all nicotine-vaping products — a move she said was intended to protect youth. Other states followed suit.

But vaping enthusiasts and business owners fought the ban, arguing that  e-cigarettes helped reduce risk, enticing smokers from more harmful combustible tobacco. The ban is still tied up in the courts.

IQOS received a boost in July from the federal government.

On July 7, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced Philip Morris could market IQOS as a product that exposes users to less harmful chemicals than traditional cigarettes, an order that drew some blowback from the medical community.

Only IQOS and one other tobacco product has been deemed a “modified risk tobacco product,” a legal designation under the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.

The other is a SNUS product by Swedish Match USA, Inc. — a small pouch with tobacco that users slip under their lips. Others are seeking the same designation, including R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. for its SNUS product.

But the July 7 IQOS decision for Philip Morris went even further than the legal designation Swedish Match carries. It allows Philip Morris to promote the product as one that “significantly reduces the production of harmful and potentially harmful chemicals.”

Studies show switching completely from cigarettes to IQOS “significantly reduces the body’s exposure to 15 specific harmful and potentially harmful chemicals,” according to the FDA order, which must be renewed after four years.

Still, the FDA made it clear: The agency has not deemed the product safe, and Philip Morris must stop short of saying that it reduces health “risks.” It also must report to the FDA its “efforts to prevent youth access and exposure.”

Concerns on its appeal to teens

The FDA decision was little noticed, but could mark a significant shift in keeping tobacco products relevant in a country where public health messaging, social pressure and cost have driven smoking rates to a historical low, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Even so, more than 480,000 people in the U.S. die annually from cigarette smoking (1,300 a day), with millions more suffering from related illnesses, according to the CDC.

Michigan has the 16th highest adult smoking rate in the country. According to the CDC, 18.9 percent, or nearly 1 in 5, Michigan adults smoke, compared to 25.2 percent, or 1 in 4 adults in West Virginia, the state that lights up most often, and 9 percent, or fewer than 1 in 10 adults, in Utah, which logs the lowest smoking rates in the nation.

The CDC reports that Michigan high school students vape, smoke and use smokeless tobacco at higher rates than the national average. It also warns that too little is known about heated tobacco to make health claims.

All of which puts tobacco opponents are on alert.

Carolyn Chaudhary works with community organizations for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, especially those with a youth focus, to drive down tobacco use among youth. For the past year, she’s alerted them about heated tobacco. She and others worry that marketing that depicts the product as “sophisticated, high-tech and aspirational” may appeal to teens and young adults.

She noted that the Truth Initiative, a nonprofit public health organization focused on tobacco prevention, found in interviews with young adults in Japan and Switzerland that heated tobacco products such as IQOS “may appeal to consumers, particularly within cultures that value cleanliness, exclusivity and high tech appearances.”

The devices also sidestep bans on indoor smoking, and it’s not clear to what extent nonusers then may be subjected to toxins released in the heated tobacco, she noted.

The product may reduce risk for individual smokers if it can help them step away from cigarettes, then eventually quit tobacco altogether, said Ken Warner, dean emeritus at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

But from a larger perspective, these new products can harm overall public health if they hook formerly non-users and young people, or if they keep cigarette smokers — who otherwise might ultimately quit altogether — addicted for a lifetime.

Warner also is a founding member of the board of the American Legacy Foundation, the group assigned to divvy up the multibillion-dollar 1998 settlement between the tobacco industry and 46 states.

Big Tobacco’s marketing budgets and talent are vast, he said: “One of the things I worry about is: If we can get people to exchange cigarettes for  a modified risk tobacco product, are they going to be able to get off those lower-risk products as well?”

Japan is the world’s largest heating non combustion market. Iqos will be launched in Japan for the first time.

According to reports, iqos recently released a new flavor in Japan: Marlboro heavy mint.

The amount of mint is higher than that of concentrated mint, and the taste is cooler than that of concentrated mint. It is priced at 530 yen in Japan and listed in 9 iqos stores.

There are 9 iqos stores in Japan, which are located in Sapporo, Sendai, Harajuku, Ginza, Nagoya, Meitian, xinzhaiqiao, Hiroshima, Fukuoka.

News that Philip Morris International (NYSE:PM) was awarded a reduced-risk label for its IQOS heated tobacco device indicates Altria (NYSE:MO) was smart to have a backup plan in place for the electronic cigarette market.

Because its investment in JUUL Labs has all but blown up in its face, Altria’s ability to still profit from e-cigs through its IQOS marketing and distribution agreement with Philip Morris shows why a company should not put all of its eggs in one basket.

Betting on the top two horses

Altria had no way of knowing which horse would win the e-cig race. While the deal with Philip Morris came first as they agreed to jointly pursue reduced-risk product development for eventual manufacture, marketing, and distribution, the phenomenal success the global tobacco giant enjoyed when it launched the IQOS device in Japan hasn’t been quite the same elsewhere in the world, though acceptance is still very positive.

There was also no knowing how it would perform in the U.S., since JUUL Labs had come from out of nowhere to run away with the market, eventually owning more than 80% of e-cig sales.

The wild card was the proposed draconian U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) regulations that promised to crush the e-cig industry, if not completely wipe it out.

Yet since e-cigs are viewed by much of the rest of the world as beneficial in helping smokers give up traditional cigarettes, there was a good chance the industry would survive, so Altria’s decision to back both the leading domestic brand and the international favorite was a smart bet to make.

A lot of unknowns

It took the FDA over two years to approve the Philip Morris application to just be able to sell the IQOS in the U.S. under Altria’s Marlboro brand as HeatSticks. That it’s been nearly four years to get a decision on its reduced-risk efficacy shows the high hurdle other e-cig manufacturers face.

To date, only British American Tobacco (NYSE:BTI) has submitted an application for e-cigarette marketing approval, for its Vuse e-cig (it submitted two additional applications this past April for its Vibe and Ciro brands). With the fall deadline fast approaching, no e-cig maker has submitted one to earn a modified-risk designation.

Although JUUL promises it will also be submitting a marketing application for its device, there is significant doubt about whether it can get approved. The FDA has come after JUUL with a vengeance for its alleged marketing of its e-cig to teens, so much so that the agency’s former commissioner has expressed doubt it can succeed.

The run of the field

None of this was apparent when Altria made its $12.8 billion investment in JUUL, which has since seen three quarters of its value wiped out. But now that the heated tobacco device has earned the reduced-risk label, which says it is less harmful than cigarettes if users completely give up smoking, it has a marketing advantage over any other device that may be approved for sale. Maybe now the tobacco giant will accelerate IQOS availability.

Although Philip Morris won approval last year, Altria has slow-walked the rollout of the device, so it is being sold in just a handful of markets at the moment.

It’s unlikely there will be much competition. It was estimated that the Philip Morris application was a million pages long and cost millions to produce, while British American said its application included 150,000 pages of supporting documents. Most small manufacturers won’t have the financial ability or scientific acumen to comply by the deadline, meaning their products could be pulled from store shelves.

The winning play

Altria and Philip Morris International may end up with almost the entire e-cig market to themselves. Even if British American Tobacco is successful in getting approved, the IQOS will have a competitive advantage from being the only e-cig on the market that the agency has acknowledged “could help addicted adult smokers transition away from combusted cigarettes and reduce their exposure to harmful chemicals” if they completely switch. That’s the case even though the FDA has explicitly said that IQOS isn’t safe and urges those not currently using tobacco not to start using IQOS either.

The JUUL Labs investment was an expensive insurance policy that was necessary to make, but now Altria can focus all of its attention on IQOS and growing it into the major cigarette alternative in the country.

British American Tobacco (BAT) said on Thursday that it has sued PMI’s companies in the US and Germany, alleging that the tobacco heating technology used in its iQOS device infringes its own patents.

British American Tobacco said it has filed two patent infringement lawsuits against PMI in the United States, one through the International Trade Commission (ITC) and the other in the United States Federal Court of Virginia in order to seek remedies for damage, and a ban on importing the product.

British American Tobacco’s lawsuit against Philip Morris International in Germany and the United States focuses on the heater technology used in iQOS.

British American Tobacco says this is an early version of the technology currently used in its global tobacco heating devices. The company has plans to launch products worldwide in Germany this year.

British American Tobacco spokesman Will Hill said in a comment that if they win, unless Philip Morris agrees, they may obtain an International Trade Commission (ITC) exclusion order to prevent the import of iQOS to the United States.

Philip Morris International started selling iQOS in the US last year. The device is currently the only heat not burn product approved for sale in the United States.

Philip Morris International said in a statement that we have seen media reports that British American Tobacco has filed legal proceedings, but has not yet assessed its allegations. “However, we can say that we will defend ourselves vigorously.”

British American Tobacco said the cases of the International Trade Commission (ITC) and the District Court will be dealt with separately, and the court’s judgments are not dependent on each other.

In the UK, British American Tobacco said it was responding to the validity of Philip Morris ’patents in response to Philip Morris America ’s lawsuit against British American Tobacco in Japan.

At present, British American Tobacco has not disclosed the amount of compensation required in all cases.

IQOS menthol kits come with IQOS 2.4 latest version device & a charger, 2 packs of menthol flavor cartridges. This heat-not-burn kit is sold at £39 in the United Kingdom.

Iqos tobacco heating system is an alternative to smoking that heats tobacco rather than burning it, providing smokers with a real tobacco taste and satisfaction.

IQOS similar product: glo

This is the new IQOS 3 DUO. And there will be an upgraded version of “IQOS3 DUO” in less than a year. I was surprised by its release to sale.

Although this is the new IQOS3 DUO, the appearance completely inherits the appearance of IQOS3 and the performance has also been improved.

This time, I will give you the first appearance from the details to the iqos review.

IQOS 3 DUO release date: November 5

Color: warm white, golden light, star blue, grey wool, warm copper

New style features are easy to understand!

Support continuous use → can be used continuously 2 times
Shortened charging time → 1/2 of the previous
For IQOS3, you must charge the device every time you smoke, but the IQOS3 DUO mouthpiece can be used twice in a row.

The charging time is from 3 minutes and 40 seconds to 1 minute and 50 seconds. Shortened to 1/2.

The packaging and form are largely the same as IQOS3, but there are some differences, so I will introduce more details.

Accessories when IQOS 3 DUO is opened

This time, I chose the warm color of the new color that appeared in DUO. It is very beautiful from the physical point of view, so it is recommended.

This time, we chose new colored warm copper from DUO. I recommend it because it’s beautiful when viewed in real life.

When the door box is opened, the accessories are beautifully stored.

It’s exactly the same as IQOS3, but no matter how many times you watch it, it’s OK to have a sense of quality.

This is exactly the same as IQOS3, but it feels very advanced no matter how many times I watch it!

I lined it up

The device, Type-C charging cable, charging head, maintenance tools, instruction manual.

What’s changed? The appearance and content of DUO

Number of continuous smoking ~~~~ 2 times

Draw times ~~~~ 20

Smoking time ~~~~~ 6 minutes / 14 draws

Warm-up time ~~~~ about 20 seconds

Device charging time ~~~~ 120 minutes

Charging time of device ~~~~ 1 minute 30 seconds

Price ~~~~ 10,800 yen

Considering that the previous models can not be used continuously, it takes 3 minutes and 40 seconds to charge, so the new model is very easy to use.

Although it is easy to explain clearly, it is obvious that continuous use is very important. Supporting two consecutive use can satisfy many people’s desires. (Of course not many.)

Support continuous use of large-capacity type IQOS3 DUO; 10 small models of continuous use MULTI; low-price IQOS2.4Plus, clear characteristics and easy selection.

Let’s take a look at the appearance of warm copper.

The lower part of the device is equipped with a USB Type-C interface from IQOS3. Please do not mind the direction of the charging port.

The LED indicator and power button are on the top.

Press the side door and it opens.

Only the door cover is made of metal. This part can be replaced by a magnet. Can be customized using separately sold accessories.

For IQOS3 DUO / IQOS3. By the way, the size and appearance are the same.

So far, the models that support continuous use are still scarce. Although the capacity is different, it is different from the small multi.

21g of heating rod is very chic when smoking.

IQOS3 looks slightly different

IQOS3DUO and IQOS3 are not exactly the same because they are almost the same.

The difference is the status light,

The status light of the new charger has been added.

There are also concerns.

The new model can keep track of the number of consecutive puff number by LED lights. This is a small thing, but it should be the only big difference 🙂

How to use IQOS3 DUO

Here are the differences between the two. First, let’s charge it well the first time.

The long and narrow LED light is divided into 4 parts. One light is below 25% of the charge.

2 lights 50%
75% remaining is 3 lights
100% full 4
Light up 2 and it can be used continuously [Change Points ①]

From here is the biggest charm of the new style.

Because it lights up two, it supports the power used twice.

First press and hold the button to turn the power on / off. When this button is pressed, the remaining charge and status can be confirmed.

Even if the heating rod is removed, the charging status can be confirmed. If used once, only one LED will light up.

This is a major feature now.

How to use

Insert the cartridge straight. Long press the power to start heating, and the warm-up time is about 20 seconds. (Vibration means ready to use)

After use, lift the lid of the heating rod and remove the cartridge. This is important, if you remove it directly, the tobacco leaves will remain inside.

In this cycle, clean the inside with maintenance tools after 1 box of catridges are consumed. (Lazy manners will lead to burnt and smelly!)

Shortening of charging time [change point ②]

Control the focus of charging,

The heating rod is magnetic in the charger and can be done without worrying about direction
After storage, the main body will start charging automatically
One to two LEDs → Turns off when two are on.
If the charge is full, you can use more than 20 catridges.

IQOS3 duo charging time ~~ 1 minute 50 seconds

IQOS3 charging time ~~ 3 minutes 40 seconds

By the way, it takes about 4 minutes and 10 seconds to charge the IQOS2.4 Plus.

IQOS3 DUO is about 1 minute and 50 seconds. Although overwhelming changes have been achieved, I think there will actually be some differences

Why is there a difference in use time

The use of IQOS is 6 minutes, or 14 puffs.

For example, what if two people use it this way?

1. A Mr. A completed in 3 minutes
2. Mr. B who used up 6 minutes
In this case, I think the battery consumption is completely different.

Actually, no matter how many times I measure, I can’t get the same result

PS: (This is my opinion, not the official announcement)

IQOS 3 DUO summary

1, easy to use. Only 1/2 charging time in normal use! Without a doubt the best result in IQOS history.

2, support continuous use. 1/2 charging time becomes so usable! This is by far the best IQOS

Where to buy IQOS 3 DUO

Two groups of people have been arrested by police in Shenzhen electronic cigarette circle recently: one is the smuggling of IQOS, the other is the copy of IQOS.

In the first decade of the birth of electronic cigarettes, vape products dominated almost the whole emerging tobacco market. Until the end of 2014, a heat not burn electronic cigarette called IQOS was sold in Nagoya and Milan. In just four years, IQOS has entered 47 countries and regions worldwide and generated $4.096 billion in revenue for Philip Morris International Inc. over the past year.

Some people call it the most successful new tobacco product in recent years, and its momentum is no less than that of Juul, the American electronic cigarette unicorn company. At the end of 2018, Juul was valued at $38 billion after being acquired, and the acquirer was the Philip Morris International, which was renamed Altria.

Too many e-cigarette companies want to become China’s Juul, but few determine to be the next IQOS. Technology, patents, policies and other restrictions, so that HNB products can only accommodate a very small number of giants. In China, there may be only one player in the end.

The self-revolution of tobacco giants

In order to quit smoking, Zhang Ping, a HNB manufacturer, tried all kinds of electronic cigarette products, but failed. Until the end of 2017, a friend heard that he was suffering from smoking addiction and gave him an IQOS. Zhang Ping’s smoking cessation plan finally worked out. He felt uncomfortable when he returned to traditional tobacco after using IQOS for less than a week . To this day, he has not picked up traditional cigarettes.

The so-called HNB is to use electronic device to heat tobacco to a lower temperature by burning cigarettes, so that tobacco releases nicotine without producing smoke and soot. Another kind of e-cig products named vape takes atomizer as the core, heating and atomizing the e-liquid containing nicotine to avoid the occurrence of harmful gases such as tar.

Although they are also called electronic cigarettes, there are still significant differences.

Firstly, the price of HNB products is high, and the device is close to 1000 yuan. The price of each pack of cigarette cartridge sales price ranges from 150 to 400 yuan. Vape seldom exceeds 300 yuan, and cartridges do not exceed 50 yuan, which is equivalent to about two packs of cigarettes. On the other hand, the HNB products consume real tobacco, and the vape uses manually prepared vape juice. Zhang Ping said, “Although it also contains addictive ingredients such as nicotine. the transmission efficiency and subsequent satisfaction differ greatly.”

Zhang Ping made an analogy, “If traditional tobacco is regarded as spicy Sichuan cuisine and Cantonese cuisine is lighter like HNB, then vape product is just a tasteless fruit salad.”

“Despite generations of innovations, the flavor of vape products are improving day by day. In the eyes of many smokers, this is a gadget, not a cigarette, and has no comparability with IQOS.” Zhang Ping said.

However, Vape.HK can barely agree on this. I smoked the traditional cigarettes for over 10 years but after I tried the vape, I quit smoking immediately though I didn’t even have a thought to quit. The strong nicotine strengh in vape made me dizzy which I had never experienced in traditional cigarrettes. Much better than smoking. I bet Zhang Ping bought the 0 nicotine contained vape or he is the manufacturer of IQOS-like product.

PMI regards IQOS as the focus of future development, rather than the well-known brand of Marlboro, Virginia and other cigarettes. Since 2017, the world’s largest listed tobacco company has redesigned its official website. In the most prominent position on its home page, Philip Morris International has set its own goal: “Design a smoke-free future.”

Of course, for a tobacco company, the “smokeless future” does not mean that tobacco will disappear completely. Maybe tobacco giants will abandon traditional cigarettes if they can continue the flavor and nicotine in other alternative ways.

Mature industries are often difficult to subvert themselves. In the public opinion, the tobacco industry has built up extremely high barriers and enjoyed huge profits in the past 120 years, which is the most unnecessary to make changes.

In fact, the tobacco industry has been plagued with unease for a long time.

More and more people are aware of the harm of smoking to human body. With the promotion of WHO and national tobacco control organizations, global tobacco consumption has been declining since 2011. In the United States, for example, statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that the smoking rate among adults in the country dropped from 23.2% in 2000 to 15.5% in 2016. To compensate for the decline in sales, tobacco companies had to raise prices, but this was clearly not a long-term solution.

IQOS is an alternative offered by Philip Morris International. It has been inferred that the product name is the acronym “I quit ordinary smoking” (I quit traditional cigarettes). According to its official website, IQOS contains 90% to 95% less harmful substances than traditional cigarette smoke after burning. IQOS mainly provides adult smokers who are unwilling to quit smoking as alternatives to cigarettes.

In 2016, with the introduction of an entertainment program, IQOS’s attention in Japan soared, and its market share increased from less than 1% to 13.9% in two years.

At the same time, other tobacco giants are also trying to enter the HNB areas. Japan Tobacco Co. completed its acquisition of Ploom and its patents in early 2015, started developing HNB products, and then launched Ploom Tech. British and American Tobacco introduced a HNB product called Glo into Sendai, Japan, at the end of 2016, accounting for 5.4% of the local convenience store chain’s sales in just 10 weeks.

However, PMI still has a long way from its dream of a “smoke-free future”. IQOS sales fell for the first time in the first quarter of 2018, with shipments in East Asia and Australia falling by 48% annually. In Korean and European markets, IQOS has maintained a relatively fast growth rate, but the Japanese market is clearly facing bottlenecks. As of March 2018, HNB products have successfully transformed more than 30% of smokers in Japan, and the road ahead is bound to be more difficult.

Finding a new market is imminent. On April 30, 2019, Philip Morris International ushered in a turning point. After more than two years of waiting, the FDA issued a document on its official website, formally approved the application for IQOS entry into the US market. PMI HNB IQOS, original and mint-flavored cigarette cartridges are legally sold in the United States.

Judging from IQOS’s past record, PMI may soon be able to pocket the revenue of the U.S. market. So far, the world’s major tobacco markets are under PMI’s control, and they can finally describe their “smoke-free future” in a broader scope, except for China.

The dilemma of China Tobacco

In China, the tobacco industry practices a monopoly system. The Tobacco Monopoly Law of the People’s Republic of China and the Regulations for the Implementation of the Tobacco Monopoly Law promulgated in the 1990s established the national tobacco monopoly system at the legal level.

IQOS tobacco cartridges contain tobacco, which naturally belongs to the monopoly system. Any transaction of IQOS tobacco products is illegal. According to incomplete statistics, in 2018, the customs anti-smuggling department investigated 70 cases of heating non-burning smuggling, with a value of 540 million yuan. The tobacco Department filed 557 cases and seized 220,000 heating non-burning cigarette cartridges.

An e-cigarette practitioner told us that not long ago, a group of IQOS smugglers in Shajing District of Shenzhen were captured by relevant authorities. These people are mainly engaged in the domestic electronic cigarette trade, since the Internet brand entered the industry, business has become more and more difficult, so they desperate to sell IQOS cigarette cartridges to make money.

On the other hand, IQOS users clearly feel that cigarette catridges are becoming more and more difficult to buy, and prices have been rising. At the beginning of the year, the price of a Marlboro cigarette cartridge was around 320 yuan, and recently it rose to 380 yuan per item. In Japan, the price of the same cigarette cartridge is about 280 yuan, while the price of the duty-free shop is lower, about 240 yuan per item, but each person is limited to 10 items. It is not illegal for consumers to buy cigarette cartridges from Japan for their own use, but trafficking is suspected of smuggling and illegal business operations.

Cartridge sellers revealed that the vicious competition in the industry is fierce, with peers using fishing techniques, first to buy cartridges from others, and then report. As a result, cartridge sellers usually sell products in one place then run to another place, hold shop accounts of multiple e-commerce platforms, and name their products “Ration” with a pet photo to cover them.

After the popularity of IQOS in Japan in 2016, domestic stars, influencers and trendsetters began to try this new product, and IQOS gradually played a brand in China. Before the rise of e-cig trend in 2019, people talked about e-cig, more referring to IQOS, a HNB product produced by Philip Morris International. Nowadays, under the blockade of policies and laws, there are still many illegal traders engaged in smuggling business, and the supply of IQOS cigarette cartridges is in short supply.

China Tobacco is not without any thoughts. Relying on the largest number of smokers in the world, China Tobacco surrendered more than 1 trillion yuan of state finance in 2018. In recent years, the sales of traditional Chinese tobacco have not declined significantly. On the premise of ensuring income, China Tobacco lacks the momentum for innovation. Compared with the 13% penetration rate of e-cigarette users in the United States, less than 0.5% of the 350 million Chinese smokers use e-cigarettes. It is still too early to talk about the impact to traditional cigarettes.

China Tobacco’s e-cigarettes try stays at the research level. A person close to China Tobacco told us that as early as around 2008, China Tobacco had studied new types of tobacco internally, but these products would not be sold in the domestic market.

Until 2014, China National Tobacco Corporation (CNTC) formally launched a new type of tobacco industry. Yunnan Tobacco, Shanghai Tobacco, Jilin Tobacco and other companies began to study e-cigs in this year.

At the end of 2017, Sichuan China Tobacco launched the brand “Kuanzhai Kungfu” of heating and non-burning. Because there are no laws and regulations to regulate such products in China, they can only be listed abroad and exported to Korea and Japan.

Subsequently, China Tobacco companies from all over the world have made great efforts. Yunnan China Tobacco’s MC low-temperature HNB product signed an overseas distributor in April 2018; Guangdong China Tobacco’s MU + and ING two HNB products were listed in Laos in July 2018; and Hubei China Tobacco co-operated in November 2017 on research and development of HNB product vinegar mouthpiece.

He Ping, an external supplier, has been cooperating with China Tobacco for a long time. He has tried all the HNB products produced by China Tobacco. According to his trial experience with the people around him, these products are far from the well-known products in the world.

In Heping’s view, China Tobacco’s new tobacco products are not for sales, but a means of brand cultivation. The products themselves are not considered from the perspective of consumers. “This is not a technical problem, but a genetic problem for tobacco industry practitioners, who are not accustomed to bowing to the market.” He Ping said.

The decisive factor for China Tobacco products has never been the market, but the will of a few policymakers. A large number of new cigarettes are put into the market every year, but they fail to satisfy the customers, and finally have to stop production. He Ping told us, “This is the norm, about 1% of the cigarettes on the market can survive. A cigarette from research and development to the market, it needs investment at least billions of yuan.

“It is impossible for China Tobacco to make electronic cigarettes on its own initiative from top to bottom.” An insider close to China Tobacco asserted. Of course, if one day a considerable number of smokers start using electronic cigarettes, requiring HNB products to go on the market, China Tobacco will not be able to sit idly by.

Another more important reason for restricting China Tobacco is that the traditional tobacco industry has been facing the problem of too large tobacco stocks. Since 2014, China’s tobacco purchases have dropped from 47 million to 35 million a year. Some people in the industry reckon that even if tobacco farmers across the country do not grow tobacco for three years, there will be enough still.

The length of the cartridge used in HNB products is only one third of that of traditional cigarettes, and the production of a cartridge consumes less tobacco. Once China Tobacco promotes the development and production of cartridges, it will inevitably put more pressure on tobacco stocks, and even hit tobacco farmers who depend on tobacco cultivation to survive.

Taking Yunnan as an example, tobacco cultivation is the largest pillar industry in Yunnan and one of the main sources of farmers’income and wealth. On October 24, 2018, Yunnan Province completed the task of purchasing and producing flue-cured tobacco in that year. It actually purchased 15.955 million tons of Flue-cured tobacco, accounting for 45.6% of the national purchasing plan. The total income of tobacco farmers reached 23.450 billion yuan.

If China Tobacco wants to go abroad and enter the territory of foreign tobacco companies to compete with them for the market, the possibility of victory is weak. Just as it is difficult for foreign tobacco companies to enter China, tobacco companies in various countries have strong territorial awareness and have already established strong barriers through policies and laws. All along, China Tobacco has focused on the domestic market and cigarettes. If those new tobacco going oversea could increase a little, it would be at most a icing on the cake.

The impatient manufacturer

“China Tobacco can wait, we can’t wait anymore.” At the IECIE in 2019, the staff from Huayu Science and Technology came up with such a sentence. Huayu Technology is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tiancheng (Pacific) Co., Ltd. of Yunnan China Tobacco. It develops HNB device MC and other products for Yunnan China Tobacco.

China Tobacco does not make HNB e-cig device itself. Instead, it cooperates with third-party companies, and the products are labeled as China Tobacco.

In China, HNB cartridges containing tobacco components can only be produced by China Tobacco, and e-cig devices produced by third-party manufacturers are not a complete product in the strict sense. Without cartridges, e-cig devices is even inferior to the lighters.

For such enterprises, holding a semi-finished product and facing policy uncertainty, becoming a partner of China Tobacco is the best solution at present. Although e-cig device is not a franchise and its profit is not higher than that of cartridges with high repurchase rate, cautious practitioners have to consider the possibility that even e-cig device will be included in the control of China Tobacco in the future. In this case, you can first connect with China Tobacco, at least to ensure that you will not lose completely.

It has been three years since IQOS became popular. China Tobacco, who never worries about money, can naturally wait. If for-profit enterprises miss this chance, they may not have the next chance.

In 2019, IECIE occupied four exhibition halls in Futian Convention and Exhibition Center, of which the smallest one was HNB products and related accessories. Just as domestic entrepreneurs rushed into the vapes field after seeing Juul’s valuation of $38 billion, domestic manufacturers were also influenced by the reference model IQOS then began to work.

The domestic HNB e-cig device is divided into two camps, one is the split design which is very similar to IQOS and separated from the device and charger; the other is the integrated device, aiming at a long using time, and it can burn multiple cartridges. Pricing is usually around 599 yuan, nearly a third cheaper than IQOS. Most of the company’s products are aimed at the domestic market, and only 5% or less of them are sold abroad.

At present, the production of such e-cig device is scarcely emiting the smell of Huaqiangbei’s counterfei mobile phone. Because of the excessive convergence of products, business-minded manufacturers will come up with novel selling points, such as making the color of the shell with the current fashion fading color, the ability to adjust the heating temperature in multiple stages, or the device with a display screen that can monitor the status of the device. What’s more, they have also developed a device that’s compatible with both Marlboro cartridges and e-liquid pod.

Zhang Ping has 13 years of experience in the mobile phone industry. Before that, he had run a mobile phone brand. The market is mainly for Vietnam, Myanmar and other Southeast Asian countries. After experiencing IQOS in 2017, he conducted several months of research. At that time, there were less than 20 HNB companies in China, and Zhang Ping felt that there were great business opportunities. After consulting with colleagues in the company, Zhang Ping created the QOQ technology to produce HNB e-cig device equipment.

Not only do his teams come from the mobile phone industry, but 95% of the supply chain of QOQ technology was accumulated in the mobile phone industry before Zhang Ping. Shell, plastic parts and other components can be handed over to mobile phone parts suppliers for production. In HNB e-cig device, only heating parts and chips need to find a special supplier.

The technology industry has specialization, and there are companies specializing in core accessories. At the Shenzhen Electronic Cigarette Show, the manager of a supplier of heating parts waved his hand and pointed to the manufacturers of HNB e-cig device, saying, “More than half of them use our products.” According to the manager, the company has a long history and has cooperated with China Tobacco as early as 7 or 8 years ago.

There are several similar vendors in the venue. Some vendors recommend that their products are “the same” as IQOS and their quality is absolutely excellent. When asked if he was suspected of infringement, the staff said to him, “IQOS won’t care much, they can’t sue everyone”.

Patent infringement is an unavoidable problem of HNB products in China. Some practitioners told us that Philip Morris International has built a thick patent wall for a long time, and it is impossible to develop HNB products around its patent barriers.

If infringement occurs, Philip Morris International won’t ignore it or leave it alone. Two months ago, there was a media report that PMI sued five electronic cigarette enterprises that produced HNB products on two patents of electronic cigarette design patent and invention patent.

Cross-border rights protection is difficult, after Philip Morris International filed a lawsuit against an electronic cigarette company in Shenzhen in 2017 for infringement of design patents. Nine months later, the lawsuit ended with the withdrawal of PMI. There are also more helpless operations, such as changing the name of the company after the defendant infringes the right, or reopening a new company, which can be done immediately, which has been a precedent in the industry. In the eyes of a few manufacturers, it is a kind of honor to receive court summons. One manufacturer even takes “being sued by IQOS in court” as the selling point in press releases and propaganda.

Many people feel lucky that on the one hand, IQOS can’t sue everyone, on the other hand, as long as the scale is not too large, no one will come to sue. However, not long ago, some insiders told us that Shenzhen police had seized more than 10 bosses, half copied IQOS and half copied Juul.

Ye Weijie, deputy general manager of Eggplant Technologies, believes that IQOS has no patents and ceramic heating is used in all fields. He believes that his products have advantages in appearance and function, can be heated to higher temperatures, closer to the flue-cured tobacco type preferred by Chinese smokers.

Domestic manufacturers are following closely behind IQOS while disapproving of their patented technology. One practitioner said that even if IQOS was completely imitated regardless of infringement, domestic manufacturers could not produce the same products at this stage.

For example, the practitioner said, “If IQOS products are now almost up to the height of the desktop, leaving some distance to the ceiling, then the domestic HNB, I’m afraid it’s still on the ground floor.”

Some users on the social platform said that compared with IQOS, the temperature control of using domestic devices to smoke Marlboro cartridge is not good, and the taste is worse. Other users pointed out that domestic device is more vulnerable than the delicate IQOS.

The products that can adapt to a variety of cartridges exist in the imagination of many domestic manufacturers, but it is still difficult to achieve at this stage. HNB device and the brand of cartridge is the perfect match. Each product has different heating curvature. It will be adjusted according to the pyrolysis property of the cartridge. It is by no means a simple circuit bridge between heating components.

More unscrupulous manufacturers advocate that their products can be adapted to traditional cigarettes. They will not tell consumers that curing traditional cigarettes has a very low carbonization rate and will produce a large amount of carbon monoxide and nitride, which is far more harmful than any traditional tobacco.

The threshold for this industry is very high, with the exception of the strong tobacco giants, emerging entrepreneurs are almost impossible to get a piece of the pie.

Three days after IQOS passed FDA approval, Philip Morris International CEO Andre Karanz Pross gave a speech at Boston College. He said that in order to find better alternatives to cigarettes, Philip Morris International has invested more than $6 billion in new tobacco research. “We are in an era of transformation, and I hope to see that the transformation from cigarettes to smokeless products is also part of it.”

IQOS has a blue-green hummingbird painted on its outer packaging. PMI said that hummingbird is a symbol of ancient tobacco. It is flexible, agile, beautiful and lively, and destructive to insects that like to bite. In San Francisco’s Oolong mythology, it was not Prometheus who brought fire to the world, but a hummingbird.