• British American Tobacco’s most recent financial report reveals more folks are picking up vaping.
• While cigarettes are still generating revenue, non-combustible products now account for 16.6 percent of BAT’s revenue.
• Unfortunately revenue from disposable vape products is also on the rise which could lead to an ewaste problem.

While Vape Nation may have become something of a meme thanks to the golden era of H3H3, the half-year report for the six months ending June 2023 from British America Tobacco (BAT) shows that folks are indeed dropping cigarettes for vapes.

For starters, non-combustibles now account for 16.6 percent of BAT’s Group revenue and New Category products (which includes vape pods, tobacco heating products, and other alternatives to cigarettes) are on track to turn a profit by 2024.

“We are making great progress in New Categories. Revenues are up by 29% and we are now close to breakeven, with consumers of Non-Combustible products up by 1.5 million versus FY 2022 . While it’s encouraging to see continued good performance in Vapour and Modern Oral, we recognise more work is required in heated tobacco,” chief executive officer at BAT, Tadeu Marroco said in a statement to shareholders.

Drilling deeper into the numbers we can see that revenue from cigarettes were down 5.7 percent compared to 2022 while vape pod revenue was up 9 percent compared to 2022. The decline in cigarette sales is attributed to macro-economic pressures in the US. This decline was offset by sales in the rest of the world.

With that having been said, folks in Asia-Pacific, as well as Middle East and Africa are increasingly picking up vaping. In South Africa, Indonesia and New Zealand, BAT saw a notable increase in revenue from vapour products. Concerningly, this growth was driven by modern disposable vape products. These are single use devices that contain a lithium-ion battery, plastics and other non-recyclable components.

While these disposable products can be recycled, that requires users return the products to return them to designated recycling points. Many buyers, however, simply toss them in the trash leaving them to bleed toxic chemicals into the environment.

It’s also rather telling that recycling gets a single mention in BAT’s report despite disposables being a booming market for the group.

With as much as 50 million tonnes of ewaste set to be generated every year, firms like BAT must address their contribution to the problem beyond an easily missed carboard box at select outlets.

[Image – Chiara Summer on Unsplash]