Boom and stabilization of electronic cigarettes
The origins of the electronic cigarette come from 1968, when Herbert A. Gilbert made the first patent of cigarette without snuff, smoke and nicotine. It was a product where smokers inhaled steam aromas only. The invention was not successful and finally was never produced.
It was not until 2003 when the first patent for an electronic cigarette with nicotine came out. This patent was done by a Chinese man called Hon Lik. He manufactured and sold the product itself in China, and later on he did the same to the rest of world as we know it now.
The electronic cigarette gradually gained popularity thanks to technical improvements, which made the sensations of the electronic cigarette more similar to a traditional cigarette. It was in the late 2000’s when the invention really succeeded and mass production begun and spread throughout the world.
Here in Spain there was a big boom especially in 2013, where thousands of companies distributed this product. There were many jobless people or entrepreneurs who decided to open an establishment or to sell it online. The vast majority of them had no knowledge of the product, but begun to sell it because of the strong growth of the market and because they thought that it will be the best business they could do then and did not hesitate to invest their savings in this business.
What really happened was that there was an oversupply by the existing demand. If we also add the strong ignorance of the product by the vendors and the strong campaigns against it from many tobacco companies, the result is a decline in the sector. This decline was not due because the product was not good itself, because it was a very good product, but for causes that poisoned the market itself. Some came from the outside, and some were internal of the market.
As a result of this, the market went into a decline during 2014 and then stabilized. Once unfounded news disappeared and entrepreneurs began to better understand the product, the market stabilized and started to increase slightly as soon as good news appeared.
If we take a look at what has happened in other countries within the EU, we see that this decline that has occurred in Spain also happened in the UE (although it appeared earlier as product was also sold earlier than in Spain). And if we look at what happened after the decline in other EU countries, we see that a strong rebound came in the following years. The reason, as mentioned previously, was due to a better understanding of the product (from vendors and consumers) and due to a decrease of negative news coming from the specialized press.
It is expected, therefore, that in Spain will happen something very similar to what happened in the rest of Europe, with a moderate recovery in the sector in the forthcoming years as it is a sector with an enormous potential.
