None of which are electronics manufacturers... or chemists. Economics: Shanghai Tobacco Products Ltd. can make an ecig for $1.83. They can sell it for $2.99. That's great profit. Marlboro can sell a branded ecig for $3.99 - for now. But they can't make it for less than $1.83. They can't make it at all. They'll have to buy it from Shanghai Tobacco Products Ltd who will either sell them to Marlboro for $2.99 or give them a volume discount because they're selling a six month run. Shanghai Tobacco Products makes $1.16 for each ecig they sell to you. Marlboro makes a maximum of $2.16... yay Marlboro. But Shanghai is going to get their cut, even if it's 50 cents on the dollar. So Marlboro is making more like $1.56... for now. What's really happened is Marlboro has underwritten Shanghai's next development cycle. Shanghai is going to come out with a new ecig they can sell for $1.59 because they can make them for $0.89. Oh and by the way, they're going to brand them as Marlboro because what the fuck is Marlboro going to do about it? Because you don't buy ecigs at nice controlled mass markets like Best Buy. You buy them from the corner bodega that mostly has peculiar skull cigarette lighters and off-brand beef jerky. All the controls that keep prices in line for tobacco? Simply don't exist for ecigs.
Dont the real benefice come from the recharge ? Even the chemist need the sweet sweet tobacco leaves. The one controling the leaves control the market. The electronic-cig ? You need one every other years. But from the get go, I dont get the argument: There is no taboo about e-cig, everyone want them, buy them, and talk about how cool and safe they are. There is already a competition about vaping! Nothing taboo.
That's my point, there may be a push against e-cig, it did not work at all. Every smoker I know did try vaping . The sad news is: none stopped normal cig. It's anecdotal, I know. But it make sense. You're addicted, you'll want the better addiction: nicotine+ sugar that come in normal cig with their caramel flavored tobacco.
Sure, people go for e-cigs anyways. But we actually have to deal with plenty of misinformed people who believe they need to enlighten us about the dangers of vaping. Worse, the propaganda has paved the way for restrictive legislation and severe taxation of liquids. Personally (and therefore equally anecdotal), I stopped smoking completely in favor of E-Cigs and I know quite a few people who have done the same.
10ml is good for a week or so. That's at 10% nicotine strength. 125ml of nicotine fluid is under $10 retail. So you go from a pack a day at $3 a pack (plus $3-4 taxes depending on the state - but Marlboro sees none of that) to $10 across four months. Sure, you can buy more expensive fluid, but we're still in the land of ridiculous reduction in expense. Nope, they can take the pure shit leaves. Even the $40 ones fry after six months. And people lose them. Dont the real benefice come from the recharge ?
Even the chemist need the sweet sweet tobacco leaves.
The electronic-cig ? You need one every other years.
But from the get go, I dont get the argument: There is no taboo abour e-cig, everyone want them, buy them, and talk about how cool and safe they are.
So ok, it's a Chinese market, and Marlboro will loose money with e-cig. So basically your argument is that West Tobacco company are against e-cig. In Europe we had a brief light ban on e-cig at its debut. But people bough them anyway, and now it's sold everywhere legally. A search for another term show how cool vaping is Not saying that Marlboro didnt care about e-cig. But they loose their Public Relation mojo compared to their former promotion of normal cig in face of lung-cancer proofs.