Disposable vapes are very likely to be banned in the UK soon. But – for adult users at least – something will surely replace them, and looking at the current shape of the disposables market may provide some clues as to the kind of products, in terms of user experience and functionality, that will do so.
In the latest edition of the ECigIntelligence Disposable E-Cigarette Tracker, published earlier this summer, the first striking number to stand out is (of course) the sheer number of different products on the market.
For Q1 2024, we estimated there were nearly 2,500 distinct disposable products available in the UK, up from about 150 three years earlier.
Over time they have also become cheaper ways to vape, with price per millilitre of e-liquid dropping by around a third over that period.
At the same time, tank capacity has steadily grown – adding about 50% between 2021 and 2024 – and so has the average number of puffs (now over 750 from a single device).
This has been matched, inevitably, by a dramatic increase in the physical size of products over the same period, although interestingly in late 2023 and early 2024 average physical size seemed to be dropping off slightly even while tank capacity was still growing.
Battery power has been on the rise, as well, though not as dramatically as size or capacity.
Meanwhile, one of the most notable recent changes in the UK disposables market is also the most obvious to a casual observer in stores or on the street – the rapidly developing presence of the box mod format, which has come from almost nowhere in little more than a year to account for around a third of products now.
Most of its growth has been at the expense of cuboid and cylindrical stick shapes.
Of course, features like these are far from the only reason that consumers buy disposables.
Nicotine strength and flavours (also covered in our tracker) are clearly of great significance too, as are less tangible attributes like price point and brand image.
But seeing how the “typical” British disposable e-cigarette has evolved over recent years into today’s incarnation gives some valuable indications of the features that replacement categories will need to offer if – or when – disposables disappear from the market.
The ECigIntelligence Disposable E-Cigarette Tracker covers seven of the largest e-cigarette markets in the world, including the UK, providing detailed analysis of disposables on the market in each country down to brand, model and specific product features.
This is based on availability, rather than sales volume or value, which are likely to differ somewhat. However, availability can act broadly as an indicator of the market’s shape and direction.
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