On the 18th, two new products will debut in Korea's e-cigarette market at the same time. Korea Philip Morris will enter a category it has not touched until now with the liquid device VEEV, and on the same day BAT Rothmans will roll out the heat-not-burn new product glo hyper pro plus.
Heat-not-burn e-cigarettes account for about 18% of the overall cigarette market in Korea. This market is effectively a two-way race in which KT&G and Korea Philip Morris take more than 90%, followed by BAT Rothmans and JTI Korea.
According to the industry on the 10th, Korea Philip Morris' move into liquids is its first category expansion since the 2017 launch of the heat-not-burn IQOS. The company cited the establishment of a legal foundation. With the amended Tobacco Business Act taking effect on Apr. 24, the definition of tobacco expanded from "tobacco leaves" to "tobacco or nicotine," and liquid synthetic nicotine products, which had been classified as manufactured goods and not taxed, were incorporated as tobacco. Because the natural nicotine liquid used in VEEV had been taxable before, it could be sold regardless of regulation, but the company said entering now, with the system in order, met its needs.
Some say the company is targeting a different layer than its existing customers. While the heat-not-burn IQOS was designed to deliver a taste as close as possible to regular cigarettes, liquids are much smoother, meaning they appeal to a fundamentally different group of consumers.
BAT Rothmans launched Vuse Go in July 2023 in the liquid category, and in Nov. 2024 it introduced the synthetic nicotine product Nomad Sync 5000 in Korea, the first in the world. However, it is widely viewed as having delivered limited results.
Launched the same day, glo hyper pro plus aims again at the heat-not-burn stronghold, which is the core of Korea's e-cigarette market. It is the first new model in two years since the 2024 hyper pro, and it cuts preheating time to 10 seconds.
According to the Ministry of Economy and Finance, sales of heat-not-burn e-cigarettes and similar products in 2024 reached 660 million packs, up 8.3% from a year earlier, accounting for 18.4% of total cigarette sales. That is rapid growth compared with 2017 (2.2%), when heat-not-burn e-cigarettes were first introduced in the domestic market.
By contrast, liquids had long existed outside the regulatory system, and large volumes smuggled in from China made counting inherently difficult. The industry expects that, because liquids brought into the system will be captured accurately, proper statistics will likely emerge around the end of the year.
An industry official said, "Up to now they have not paid taxes, but now they will, so the tally will be accurate," adding, "With Philip Morris entering, this is the point when we will see specifically what share it takes and how much BAT actually holds."