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▼ Electronic Cigarettes Proving a Sellout Hit in Japanese Market
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Electronic cigarettes, which do not require a flame but heat tobacco leaves to create a vapor that is inhaled, are so popular in Japan these days that demand cannot keep up with supply.
However, attention must be paid to the negative health effects of e-cigarettes, as users still inhale nicotine — just as with regular cigarettes. Also, it has not been scientifically proven that these smokeless cigarettes do not cause passive smoking.
The e-cigarette boom was triggered by iQOS, a product released by Philip Morris Japan K.K. Rather than burning tobacco leaves, the iQOS heats cigarettes in a small cylindrical device — all designed exclusively for each other — so that nicotine and vapors are inhaled together.
Sales of iQOS began in Tokyo in September last year, before expanding nationwide in April. Even though the kit is priced as high as ¥9,980, convenience stores and tobacco shops have found it quickly sells out whenever it hits the shelves.
“We distribute numbered tickets to customers on the day we get iQOS,” the manager of a tobacco shop in Tokyo said. “But we can’t keep up with [the increasing demand].”
The market share of iQOS in Tokyo has already surpassed 5 percent.
Japan Tobacco Inc. started selling its own electronic cigarettes — Ploom Tech, priced at ¥4,000 — in Fukuoka and on the internet in March. It temporarily suspended shipments in the face of a flood of orders, and even though it resumed shipments in June, JT has currently suspended online orders from new customers.
With the nation’s shrinking number of smokers, makers regard e-cigarettes as “the leading item among next-generation products,” as said by Satoshi Inoue, corporate affairs director at Philip Morris Japan.
However, clinical tests have not been completed on whether electronic cigarettes can cause damage to human health. Makers have said they cannot promise that electronic cigarettes involve lower risks than regular products.
Local governments take different positions when it comes to e-cigarettes. The government of Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo, considers them cigarettes, and therefore imposes penalties on those who smoke them while walking on the street.
In contrast, the Osaka and Nagoya municipal governments currently exempt e-cigarettes from regulations, citing the fact that the flameless products can’t burn other people.
It is also up to public facilities, restaurants and accommodation facilities to decide whether e-cigarettes can be used in smoking or non-smoking spaces.
Japan Tobacco Inc. started selling its own electronic cigarettes — Ploom Tech, priced at ¥4,000 — in Fukuoka and on the internet in March. It temporarily suspended shipments in the face of a flood of orders, and even though it resumed shipments in June, JT has currently suspended online orders from new customers.
With the nation’s shrinking number of smokers, makers regard e-cigarettes as “the leading item among next-generation products,” as said by Satoshi Inoue, corporate affairs director at Philip Morris Japan.
However, clinical tests have not been completed on whether electronic cigarettes can cause damage to human health. Makers have said they cannot promise that electronic cigarettes involve lower risks than regular products.
Local governments take different positions when it comes to e-cigarettes. The government of Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo, considers them cigarettes, and therefore imposes penalties on those who smoke them while walking on the street.
In contrast, the Osaka and Nagoya municipal governments currently exempt e-cigarettes from regulations, citing the fact that the flameless products can’t burn other people.
It is also up to public facilities, restaurants and accommodation facilities to decide whether e-cigarettes can be used in smoking or non-smoking spaces.
- August 26, 2016
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