LONDON: Leading tobacco companies are investing in electronic cigarettes as analysts predict that vaping – using a vaporiser to inhale flavoured nicotine – could overtake smoking within a decade.
Bonnie Herzog, an analyst at Wells Fargo bank in New York, told Reuters that the US market alone would be worth more than $1bn this year. And the appearance of celebrities using the product, including the likes of Leonardo di Caprio and Catherine Deneuve, is likely to give the sector a further boost.
"Growth is exponential and there are no signs it's slowing down," Katherine Devlin, president of the London-based Electronic Cigarette Industry Trade Association, told the New York Times.
"There is a huge amount at stake," she added.
The stakes are potentially high for both tobacco companies and ad agencies as e-cigarettes don't use tobacco and are not subject to the same restrictions on TV. "This presents a whole new revenue stream that they haven't had available since 1971," Emma Bazillian of AdWeek told WTVM.
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