On February 22, the Ministry of public security, the state tobacco monopoly administration, the State Administration of market supervision and the Ministry of Education jointly issued the special work plan for cleaning up and rectifying the sale of e-cigarettes to minors and severely cracking down on crimes involving e-cigarettes (hereinafter referred to as the plan), which is scheduled to carry out special cleaning up and rectification from now until the end of April.
Or affected by this news, 37 e-cigarette concept stocks in A-Shares generally fell slightly today. As of the closing, only Lingda Group Co.Ltd(300125) , Guangzhou Great Power Energy&Technology Co.Ltd(300438) , Shenzhen Yinghe Technology Co.Ltd(300457) , Gettopacoustic Co.Ltd(002655) 4 stocks rose slightly.
Although several stock prices fell slightly, many people in the industry pointed out to the reporter of Securities Daily that this move will help the industry tend to be standardized, which is welcomed by the plan.
strengthening governance is conducive to the liquidation of the industry
In recent years, the state has continued to strengthen the work related to youth smoking control. As early as the end of 2019, eight departments including the National Health Commission, the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee and the Ministry of Education issued the notice on Further Strengthening youth tobacco control, which clearly proposed to “ensure that businesses do not sell cigarettes to minors and minors cannot buy cigarettes”.
In 2020, the revised draft of the law on the protection of minors also clearly added the requirement that “no tobacco, alcohol and other sales outlets shall be set around the school, and smoking will be prohibited”, and it is clear that cigarettes include electronic cigarettes.
In the plan, it is clear that through special work, we should clean up a number of e-cigarette outlets and e-cigarette vending machines around the campus, ban a number of unlicensed business places, clean up and delete a number of harmful information about online sales of e-cigarettes, and investigate and deal with a number of illegal cases of selling e-cigarettes to minors, A number of drug-related criminal cases such as “electronic cigarettes on the head” were cracked.
An e-cigarette agent who declined to be named told the Securities Daily, “At present, the first-line manufacturers or brands in the industry strictly and explicitly prohibit the sale of products to minors to major dealers and stores. This is the red line of the policy, and no one dares to touch it. However, there are some small collection stores or small brand shop owners who never verify whether the buyer is an adult. From the perspective of cities, the management of first-line cities is relatively strict and general No business dares to do so. But in the third and fourth tier cities, this situation is relatively common. “
In addition, the plan points out that enterprises should be promoted to implement the main responsibility and clean up the harmful information of e-cigarette promotion and sales on the Internet.
In this regard, the staff of a leading e-cigarette manufacturer told the reporter of Securities Daily that Yueke has always been a guardian plan for the protection of minors. At present, problems such as “top electronic cigarette” and “wechat fake goods” in the market have also been disturbing the market. Yueke’s own legal affairs are also actively cooperating with the public security to crack down on relevant situations. In the long run, the plan launched by the state will contribute to the healthy development of the industry.
In this regard, Liu Youhua, research director of private placement network, told the reporter of Securities Daily: “We believe that the policy has a limited impact on the e-cigarette sector, and even benefits the leading companies with technical and brand advantages in the e-cigarette sector. Because the mainstream e-cigarette brands have already taken precautions in advance, they have not developed minors as consumer groups. However, due to the low access threshold of the e-cigarette industry, there are illegal businesses and enterprises, and this is just conducive to the development of e-cigarettes The clearing of the tobacco industry. “
the leading effect is expected to highlight
In December 2021, the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration issued the measures for the administration of e-cigarettes (Draft for comments) (hereinafter referred to as the “draft for comments”), which attracted close attention from people in the e-cigarette industry. The draft defines the definition and supervision object of e-cigarette, and establishes a national unified e-cigarette transaction management platform to manage the transaction of e-cigarette products and e-cigarette nicotine.
Zhonglun law firm once pointed out that the establishment of an e-cigarette transaction management platform in the opinion draft can not only solve the problems of decentralized transactions, difficult monitoring and savage growth in the e-cigarette market. It can also solve the problem that e-cigarettes are easy to flow to minors through the Internet platform.
The staff of another leading e-cigarette manufacturer told the reporter of Securities Daily that the implementation of the scheme related to youth tobacco control can actually be regarded as one of the manifestations of the implementation of regulatory policy rules after the issuance of the opinion draft.
Regarding this plan, Long Hao, chairman of Jinding assets, told the reporter of Securities Daily, “Due to the low entry threshold of e-cigarette enterprises and the widespread phenomenon of illegal operation, the introduction of this policy will restrain the expansion momentum of e-cigarette industry to a certain extent. Many small and medium-sized enterprises with weak financial strength and management ability will be gradually eliminated. In the future, individual large enterprises with R & D strength, capital and marketing service network will have high quality Electronic cigarette products with the characteristics of low pollution, reduced addiction and less harm to the body can seize more market share and form the advantages of leading enterprises in the later stage. “
