Baek Byung-yeul is a journalist at The Korea Times focused on cultural content, including films and cultural events in South Korea. You can contact him at baekby@koreatimes.co.kr to share your insights.
KT&G enjoying brisk sales of lil Hybrid
Seen are KT&G's lil Hybrid tobacco heating devices, tobacco sticks and e-liquid cartridges. / Courtesy of KT&G
By Baek Byung-yeul
By Baek Byung-yeul
KT&G has been enjoying strong sales of its hybrid e-cigarette lil Hybrid, selling more than 200,000 devices within 80 days of its launch, the tobacco manufacturer said Thursday.
The firm started selling the lil Hybrid heat-not-burn (HNB) electronic device, MIIX heating tobacco sticks and e-liquid cartridge in December last year.
The lil Hybrid is a hybrid of a vapor and HNB cigarette, using both tobacco sticks and e-liquid at the same time.
KT&G said the hybrid e-cigarette device is growing faster than the lil HNB device, which took about 100 days to pass the 200,000 mark.
KT&G said the sales of its lil HNB device passed the 1 million mark in October 2018 and it had sold more than 1.5 million devices as of mid-March.
“The lil Hybrid is a differentiated platform made of the firm's cutting-edge e-cigarette technology and has seen a rapid increase in the market as it is recognized by consumers,” Lim Wang-seop, chief of KT&G's innovative product department, said.
The country's e-cigarette industry has seen growing competition in recent years. Industry officials presume the race to take the lead in the market will peak this year as American e-cigarette maker JUUL Labs is expected to roll out its popular vaping device JUUL within this year.
Lim said KT&G has been developing new products that can compete with JUUL, which accounts for more than 70 percent of the U.S. e-cigarette market.
“The e-cigarette market only accounts for 3.13 percent of the entire tobacco market here. We expect the portion will grow to about 14 percent to 15 percent after JUUL is introduced,” he said adding the firm will keep a vigilant eye on the market changes.
Analysts said KT&G won't be affected much by those changes in the tobacco market.
“There is widespread concern in the industry that due to growing competition, KT&G will likely be less affected,” said Cho Sang-hoon, an analyst at Samsung Securities.
The analysts added that the firm will see a continuing increase in its market share saying KT&G's share in the regular cigarette market will grow to 62.9 percent in 2019, about a 1 percent increase year-on-year and its share in the e-cigarette market will be 30 percent, a sharp increase from 17.1 percent in 2018.