Big Tobacco Beware, Vapor Cigarettes Are Here
For decades, tobacco companies cornered the market on cigarette sales. However, sales have been taking a nosedive lately, and the once-booming industry is seeking to protect its multi-billion-dollar bottom line by concentrating on its global reach in Asia and other continents.
Besides the usual suspects as reasons for the decline—health risks and cost at the forefront—other obstacles exist. In 2008, China became the first country to introduce a non-tobacco alternative known as the "electronic cigarette"—also known as the "vapor cigarette."
"Consumption of e-cigs may overtake traditional cigarettes in the next decade," predicts Wells Fargo analyst Bonnie Herzog. "And they’ll only evolve and improve as time goes forward—at far less risk. The technology portion of it is sort of like Apple. This is just version one."
Vapor cigarettes are battery-powered inhalers that heat tubes to turn a liquid solution into vapor at much lower temperatures than tobacco-based cigarettes. Instead of "smoke," they produce water vapor that mimics the feel of smoking and contains approximately the same amount of nicotine as a conventional cigarette.
While not marketed as a way to quit smoking, many believe it can help defeat the addiction, noting that other benefits include not burning tobacco, and they don’t emit secondhand smoke or produce ash.
With more than 40 million smokers in the U.S. making up big tobacco’s demographic (and many of them looking for alternatives to smoking), a sizable windfall of both money and market for companies like Icon Vapor (OTCPK: ICNV), an independent, ultra-premium quality vapor cigarette company.
To date, vapor cigarette sales have doubled every year since 2008, according to UBS Financial Services, and were due to break the $1 billion bar this past year, although sales figures for 2013 have not yet been released. This means a potentially lucrative future for Icon Vapor.
"Icon Vapor’s goal is to provide a sensible, safer, cost-competitive alternative to the tobacco-based cigarette," notes Daniel Balsiger, president of Icon Vapor. "We also believe that an informed consumer will carefully consider who they purchase vapor cigarettes from, and that Icon Vapor will distinguish itself in the marketplace as a superior product to big tobacco’s recent efforts to diversify into that space."
Icon Vapor recently unveiled an innovative marketing platform that offers an excellent opportunity for those wanting to enter this growing, lucrative market—with its goal and structure designed to give profits back to the average person just by sharing the word.
Thanks: NewsUSA