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January 17th, 2017:

How Much Of Big Tobacco’s Sales Come From Vape Products?

https://www.benzinga.com/news/17/01/8912943/how-much-of-big-tobaccos-sales-come-from-vape-products

The $49 billion purchase by British American Tobacco PLC (ADR) BTI 1.62% of the remaining stake available in Reynolds American, Inc. RAI 0.83% comes in a tobacco market that’s a lot less hazy than before, with leading manufacturers investing in alternatives to the traditional cigarette.

Tobacco industry sales as a whole may have contracted by 2.5 percent in 2016, Wells Fargo analyst Bonnie Herzog was quoted as saying last week in the Winston-Salem Journal — and Herzog is forecasting a 3.4 percent decline for 2017.

At the same time, Herzog forecasts $400 million in growth in the e-cig and vaporizer sectors in 2017.

Growing Smokeless Revenue

Reynolds has its own electronic cigarette brand, Vuse, and holds about one-third of the American e-cigarette market. The Winston-Salem Journal reported in 2015 that while Reynolds’ e-cigarette revenue isn’t separately reported, but rather included in an “all other” revenue category. That category had $386 million in sales in fiscal 2015, according to Reynolds’ annual report — a 39.9 percent leap from $263 million in 2014.

The e-cigarette venture remains a fraction of Reynolds’ traditional tobacco business, which saw $8.6 billion in net sales in 2015 (24 percent of the U.S. market), according to the Motley Fool. Reynolds acquired Lorillard LLC (previously traded NYSELO for $25 billion in 2015, taking over the Newport cigarette brand in the process.

Reynolds is developing products such as e-cigarettes and nicotine gum under the umbrella of RAI Innovations Co., CEO Susan M. Cameron wrote in a letter to shareholders last year.

Competitor Altria Group Inc (NYSE: MO), which markets the MarkTen e-cigarette, has “single-digit shares” in the e-cigarette sector, according to the Motley Fool.

British American’s equivalent e-cigarette device, Vype, is sold overseas

There’s Nothing Sexy About An E-Cigarette Exploding In Your Face

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robwaters/2017/01/17/theres-not-much-sexy-about-an-e-cigarette-exploding-in-your-face/#2bab2377177e

Rob Waters ,

Contributor

I write about health, science and our crazy healthcare system.

Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

The last time I wrote about electronic cigarettes in this space, the post generated about as many comments as I’ve received from any piece (with the possible exception of the hate mail I got when I wrote about the need to permit federal funding for research looking at gun violence). The commenters called me a liar, an idiot and…well, you get the idea.

In that earlier post, I noted that e-cigarette marketers were peddling their products as cool and sexy. The ads are full of women with bare shoulders or in slinky blue satin who “smoke in style” (as an ad for blu e-cigarettes exclaims), while dangling their devices. Now, the continuing spate of news about e-cigs blowing up in the faces or pockets of users made me wonder what a new set of anti-e-cigarette commercials might look like. (Note to California Dept. of Public Health: there’s an idea for you here.)

E-cigarette devices have burst into flames in people’s pockets, blown up in their mouths or exploded while charging. Videos of them starting a fire from the pocket of a Fresno, California, bus rider or in a Leeds, England, market are now making the rounds on the Internet.

But this is no laughing matter.

Earlier this month, the Food and Drug Administration announced it is investigating the dangers of “battery-operated nicotine-delivery devices” as they clinically, but accurately, refer to e-cigarettes. The agency has documented 134 incidents of e-cigarette batteries overheating, exploding or catching fire.

The FDA will hold a two-day public workshop to discuss safety issues surrounding the batteries used in e-cigarettes on April 19 and April 20, 2017, that scientists and members of the public are invited to attend. Some wonder why it took so long.