Explain Why The World's Third Largest Market Has Changed Its Direction Abruptly
In March 2022, French President Emmanuel Macron released a photo taken by his official photography agency of him entering his office. In the photo, Macron is holding a stack of documents in his left hand and an e-cigarette in his right hand.
According to French media reports, Macron had the habit of smoking Xerga occasionally, and has now become an e-cigarette user - Macron has become the world's most well-known e-cigarette user by beating Leonardo DiCaprio, Katy Perry, Tom Hardy and other stars.
Macron's shift is not surprising. Compared with the United States, the largest and the most regulatory-friendly United Kingdom, the development of e-cigarettes in France is not far behind - not only the earliest e-cigarette market in Europe, but also the third largest overseas market for e-cigarettes after the United States and the United Kingdom.
Perspective on France, the third largest market
In terms of data, the European Commission's data in 2017 showed that there were about 3 million e-cigarette users in France; In 2022, this number has risen to more than 3.5 million; For comparison, 34.6% of adults in France were smokers in 2021, totalling about 18.4 million.
On this basis, the French e-cigarette industry is still growing. According to the research forecast released by the French research institute Xerfi in May 2022, the French e-cigarette industry will maintain an annual growth rate of 5%~10%, reaching 1.3 billion euros in 2023.
The core reason behind the optimistic forecast is the promotion of e-cigarettes by French tobacco policy, academic research, and public opinion over the years.
For example, France has gradually increased the price of traditional tobacco in recent years, causing smokers to reduce tobacco consumption or quit smoking, or turn to e-cigarettes; Since 2015, the French High Council for Public Health and the French National Cancer Institute have proposed to encourage the use of e-cigarettes and nicotine replacement therapy (patches, chewing gum) as equally recommended smoking cessation tools in anti-smoking campaigns
In a milestone event, on June 26, 2019, Le Figaro published the results of a study published by the French public health agency, which mentioned that since its appearance in 2010 and 2017, 700,000 people have claimed to have quit smoking due to the use of e-cigarettes; At the same time, 80% of e-cigarette users who have not fully quit smoking still reduce their cigarette consumption, from 1 pack to an average of 9 cigarettes per day.
