BUSINESS of a local company fired up two years after its establishment after it started making e-cigarettes, the South China Morning Post reported yesterday.
ZYS Technology began corporate life as a maker of digital navigational instruments and video handsets and it started the new electronic cigarettes business at the beginning of 2009.
We switched to e-cigarettes to boost the company s profit, said Yuki Wen, ZYS sales manager.
She said the company sold about 150,000 cigarettes every month, with half exported mostly to Japan, the United States and several European countries. The rest are sold on the mainland.
ZYS now is betting its future on the appeal of simulated smoking.
Shenzhen has rapidly become the world s biggest center for making e-cigarettes, a market that researcher Euromonitor estimates is worth US$100 million in annual global sales. According to the National Vapers Club, an advocacy group for e-cigarette users, at least 1 million people in the United States use the product.
E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices that resemble a cigarette. When inhaled, the devices turn nicotine-laced liquid into a fine vapor mist that looks like smoke. They can be flavored to mimic the taste of well-known brands. Any brand, you just name it, Wen said.
Images of actor Johnny Depp puffing on an e-cigarette in The Tourist could stoke sales. The movie will certainly promote this product, said an official at Shenzhen Smoore Technology, a big maker of e-cigarettes. (SD-Agencies)
Over the past year, the number of e-cigarette producers in Shenzhen has exploded. At the beginning, there were about 15 companies in Shenzhen making e-cigarettes, Wen said, but now there are more than 100. With about 100 workers, ZYS is already a mid-scale company in the industry; smaller operations have just 20 to 30 employees.
bit. I saw the commercial so I bought one. It cost me 158 yuan, he said.
