A look back at the heated cigarette industry; will with-display be hot in 2020-2021?

Hello,Heated cigarette blogger Genki (@MOQLOG_JP)It is.

Mornings and evenings have gotten quite chilly lately, haven't they?

As the weather gets colder, I have a habit of looking back to the past, and while thinking about how things were back then, I also thought about heated cigarettes.

I took a little look back, so if you have some free time, please read along.

Heated Cigarettes (Next Generation Cigarettes)

Mocrog collectively referred to heated cigarettes and e-cigarettes as "next generation cigarettes" as opposed to "paper cigarettes".

Unfortunately, the word did not spread very far, but the system of using electricity instead of fire is revolutionary, and it is amazing that tar and carbon monoxide are greatly reduced by not burning, and that there is no smoke (instead, steam is emitted).

And it continues to evolve every year and is now becoming like a digital appliance.

Today I would like to take a look back at the history of the evolution of these next-generation cigarettes.

Japan's first heated cigarette was not Icos!

What do you think was the first heated cigarette sold in Japan when the term "heated cigarette" did not even exist yet?

Many people may imagine PM's first Icos (Nagoya proto model), but it was released in November 2014.

But there was a device that preceded it, JT's first Ploom, which was quietly sold in December 2013.

This first generation Plume was discontinued in March 2016 with the launch of PloomTECH, and this is the first major heated cigarette in Japan.

The boom was sparked by Ametalk!

The number of Icos users slowly increased, but it was the "Ametalk / Icos Geinin" broadcast in April 2016 that gave Icos its big break! / Icos Geisha".

The Aicos were the only ones that attracted attention here, but Plumtec, which was released a short time before, also has the same heating system, and thus its popularity is now split in two.

The resale market was booming, with the regular price for Icos, which is approximately 10,000 yen, at a premium price of 20,000 yen, and Plumtec at 4,000 yen to 20,000 yen, an extraordinary situation.

When people say they don't have it, they want it, and this boom continued until the end of 2017, when supplies stabilized.

Standardized glow for continuous sucking

Launched in December 2016, in the midst of the boom, BAT's Glow brought a new evolution to heated cigarettes.

It is a function called "continuous sucking.

At the time, the only heated cigarettes available were Icos (Plumtecs were a rare gadget that you couldn't buy any more than Icos), and I had to charge the holder every time, and I couldn't smoke two cigarettes in a row with one device by any means.

Glow solved this dissatisfaction, and since the first Glow, it has sought to differentiate itself from Icos by promoting "continuous smoking.

High-temperature and low-temperature heating systems

By mid-2017, PlumTech will be somewhat affordable.

Then I was surprised at how different the taste was from the Icos, and finally discovered that they were different.

Since that time, the categories have been divided into "high-temperature heating type (i.e., Icos and Glow)," which are more rewarding to smoke, and "low-temperature heating type (Plumtec), which is not as rewarding but has less odor and toxic substances.

They have been collectively referred to as "heated," but since the fundamental mechanisms are so different, they will evolve separately.

Evolution and history of high-temperature heating systems

Icos, various Glows, Plume-es, and Pals fall under the category of "high-temperature heated cigarettes," as they are commonly referred to.

After putting it all together, I thought that only the separate model of Icos continues to evolve on its own.

Finally, Icos is now a duo push based on the Icos 3 instead of the multi, and I'm kind of looking forward to seeing how the Icos 4, which will eventually be released, will evolve.

All-in-one x continuous sucking

The only two choices for high-temperature heating were Icos, which required a charger and holder, and Glow, which is an integrated device that allows continuous smoking, but with the popularity of the Icos 3 Multi, all-in-ones have become mainstream.

In November 2018, Icos will be fully redesigned and the Icos 3 and Multi will be available.

The key to this multi is that it is the first Icos model that supports continuous smoking, and it is also an all-in-one machine.

This was so popular that the "all-in-one x continuous smoking" model became the standard, and later Plume-S and PALS were also released in the "all-in-one x continuous smoking" model, following suit.

Multi-low specs are a failure.

Incidentally, the mulch only smoked less than 10 bottles, but the boom in mulch causes companies to make a mistake.

Glow launches a mini with half the battery capacity, which is slightly smaller, but fails. The regular model was still available at the same time, so there was a receptacle, but it was Plume that was disastrous.

Plume S was a model that could only smoke about 8 cigarettes from the beginning, so it did not gain much market share after people started to realize that it was no good not being able to smoke a pack of cigarettes! So, after people started to realize that, we could hardly expand our market share.

Two modes have become standard for high-temperature heating systems

PALS was the first major brand to offer a selectable "heating mode," a feature often found in interchangeable devices.

Launched in May 2019 after the boom, Pals has two "heating modes": a normal heating mode and an eco mode.

At that time, Pals was the only product with a choice of heating modes, but while it took time to launch nationwide, the Glow Pro with Boost mode was introduced.

Furthermore, Plume-S evolved to a point where Plume-S 2.0 with Taste Accelerator mode was released to follow, and it became a standard.

Pals should have deployed it sooner.

Pals was quite a hot topic when it was first launched.

It was an all-in-one cigarette that could be smoked continuously, had the same smoking experience as an Icos, featured the first "selectable heating mode," and the dedicated cigarettes were reasonably priced, so there were many factors that made it popular.

However, while we were testing the Fukuoka-only release, Glow released a new model with a heating mode, and it became the talk of the town.

Even when it was launched nationally, the announcement was weak, and when I noticed it was in a convenience store...it never surfaced.

If we had been able to expand nationwide earlier, I think we could have gained some market share, but I suspect it will be difficult to gain any more market share with the current machine.

Evolution and history of low-temperature heating systems

JT is the only one in this genre, but more than that, it will evolve to resemble e-cigarettes, since its base is e-cigarettes.

However, since "lil HYBRID" was recently released, full-scale changes in this category might start from here.

To be frank, devices similar to "lil" like Mr. "VP STYLE" are already on the market, and the low-temperature heating category still has a lot of room for evolution.

More than e-cigarette at a stretch

The first cold-heated PlumTech is based on the "first generation" in the world of electronic cigarettes.

As the third generation is the mainstream in the e-cigarette world, you can see that it is ultra-low-tech.

Therefore, the evolutionary process is the same as that of e-cigarettes, and Plumtec Plus is the second generation, so it is evolving in the same way as e-cigarettes.

Pod type, break

To digress a bit, the "pod type" has become popular in the e-cigarette world since about the end of 2018.

My Blue falls into this category, but the recently withdrawn GlowSense was also a pod type.

I honestly believe that the lack of popularity of the GlowSense was not because it was a pod type, but because it was poorly made, but the base of the cold heating system is still a pen type.

Puff count notification function is required.

Puff counting is an essential feature for cold-heated cigarettes, which are smoked with a tobacco capsule attached to the tip.

This is because the number of times a tobacco capsule can be used is limited, and you will not get the nicotine you use all the time.

Without nicotine, it's just an e-cigarette....

GlowSense was probably abandoned by its users because it underestimated the availability of this feature.

Is it based on a diplay mounted?

This is another common feature in the e-cigarette world, but finally, cold-heated models will also be equipped with displays.

Both "lil" released by KT&G and Ploom TECH+ "with" released in month 11 are equipped with displays, giving the impression that displays will become standard on future new models.

It has a more gadget-like feel to it, and I think many boys like this kind of thing.

Reflection Summary

I've written a lot about PlumTec, which at first looked like a mere ballpoint pen, but now looks just like a vape and even has a display.

While the appearance of Icos and Glow have not changed drastically, their contents have certainly evolved.

However, one thing I can say is that when some new feature is accepted, it tends to be adopted by all companies at once, so I think we will see models with displays in Icos and Glow in the near future.

The other dark horse is "lil," which, if it is accepted by consumers, could very well lead to the release of devices with similar mechanisms by other companies.

We look forward to seeing what devices will be created next.

postscript

When I was writing it, I didn't know what I wanted to write and it got all jumbled up (sweat).

Well, writing what you want to write is what a blog is all about, so I thought it would be nice to have a post like this....

Thank you for staying with me until the end of this article, which is all words and no more than a few words, and I don't even know what I want to say.

That's all for today.