Whereas the FTC has collected data on conventional cigarette and smokeless tobacco gross sales and promoting expenditures for a few years, this was the primary time it sought data associated to e-cigarettes. The orders requested about e-cigarette gross sales and promoting and promotional actions for 2015 to 2018. The report issued as we speak presents an aggregated and anonymized abstract of the knowledge the six corporations supplied to the Fee.
Key Findings
Complete Gross sales. The info collected present a dramatic improve in e-cigarette gross sales on the whole between 2015 and 2018 (from $304.2 million to $2.06 billion, respectively), in addition to a equally dramatic improve within the gross sales of cartridge e-cigarette programs resembling Juul’s. The businesses bought $260 million price of such cartridge programs in 2015, with gross sales rising to $1.969 billion in simply three years.
Flavored E-Cigarette Gross sales. As well as, the FTC discovered that there was a big shift in gross sales from tobacco-flavored e-cigarette merchandise to fruit, sweet, and dessert flavors. For instance, tobacco-flavored e-cigarette cartridges gross sales dropped from 47.2% of these bought or given away in 2015 to 21% in 2018, whereas the sale of “different” flavored cartridges tripled in that point, rising from 13.8% in 2015 to 42.1% in 2018.
Of these different flavored cartridges, fruit-flavored cartridges had been the most well-liked, with gross sales rising 600% from 4.7% of all cartridges bought in 2015 to 29.7% in 2018. Related will increase had been seen within the sale of sweet and dessert-flavored cartridges, in addition to the sale of disposable e-cigarettes with these flavors.
The report concludes that “the dramatic improve in flavored merchandise raises severe issues that such merchandise might need maintained or elevated youth use of e-cigarette merchandise.” It notes {that a} 2018 survey of highschool college students nationwide discovered that greater than two-thirds of e-cigarette customers used flavored merchandise and that analysis reveals that younger folks determine flavors as a major cause they use e-cigarettes.
This was a big improve from 2016, when a nationwide survey of highschool and center faculty college students discovered that simply 31% mentioned that the supply of “flavors resembling mint, sweet, fruit, or chocolate” was the first cause they used e-cigarettes. As well as, 81% of adolescents mentioned they used flavors the primary time they tried e-cigarettes.
Rising Nicotine Focus. The report additionally reveals a big improve within the focus of nicotine in disposable e-cigarettes bought between 2015 and 2018. In 2015, disposable merchandise on common contained 25 mg of nicotine per ml of e-liquid. This focus elevated almost 60% to 39.5 mg/ml in 2018, rising their addictiveness. Cartridge-based e-cigarettes contained even greater nicotine concentrations, with the most well-liked merchandise having concentrations between 51 and 61 mg/ml, whereas the sale of nicotine-free cartridges was negligible.
The report said that, “Elevated use of e-cigarette products with high nicotine concentrations raises severe public well being and security issues for customers . . . together with youth and younger adults, who’re uniquely in danger for long-term, long-lasting results, together with nicotine dependancy, from exposing their creating brains to nicotine.”
Promoting and Promotion. Lastly, the report supplies detailed data on promoting and promotional expenditures by home e-cigarettes producers between 2015 and 2018. The Fee discovered that spending on promoting and promotion greater than tripled in three years, from $197.8 million in 2015 to $643.6 million in 2018. The Fee said that “the elevated promoting and promotion increase public well being issues,” as public well being authorities have concluded that e-cigarette promoting publicity is one in every of a number of components that has contributed to the current surge in youth e-cigarette use.
The report finds that spending on free or deeply discounted e-cigarette merchandise greater than doubled between 2015 and 2018, with some corporations evading the FDA’s 2016 ban on free e-cigarette samples by providing merchandise for $1 or an analogous quantity.
The report additionally states that value reductions paid to retailers or wholesalers to scale back the worth of e-cigarettes to customers elevated 14-fold between 2015 and 2018, and spending on movie star endorsers, social media influencers, model ambassadors, and others to advertise e-cigarettes merchandise elevated much more – almost 15-fold throughout these three years.
The Fee vote approving issuance of the FTC’s E-Cigarette Report was 4-0.
