Japan is the world's largest market for electronic cigarettes (according to Euromonitor International, up to 96% of the world), thanks to which sales of conventional cigarettes are on the decline. According to statistics from the Association for Cigarettes in Japan, sales have been steadily decreasing since 1996, when almost 350 billion cigarettes were sold, after 20 years consumption was more than half lower in 2016 and still declining by more than 10%.
The cause is, apart from the decreasing percentage of smokers in the population of up to 1% per year in last year's 18.2%, the ever-increasing popularity of e-cigarettes, in 2018 there is expected an unbelievable 38% raise which would make it occupy over 20% of the Japanese tobacco market.
The IQOS, which was introduced by Philip Morris back in 2014, has a large share in the decline and because it didn't have a competition for a long time, it has since taken more than 70% of the market. GLO by British American Tabacco or Ploom TECH from Japan Tobacco started competing in 2017, being three years behind. Glo sold over a million devices in the first year, but it is not enough for a major market share, holding at 5%.
How big the market share of IQOS is in South Korea
In South Korea, another country where IQOS is popular, it holds half the market share and has been battling over it hard since 2017 with the local KT&G which produces an equally successful LIL with Fiit cartridges, cleverly IQOS compatible. Koreans working for us even claim that LIL is better than IQOS. The remaining portion of the market is occupied by GLO.
LIL by KT&G and Fiit cartridges that are IQOS compatible