As an electronic product, electronic cigarettes involve a huge and complicated industrial division of labor, but after combing through this article, I believe you can also clearly perceive the structural distribution of this industry in your mind. This paper mainly reviews the industry distribution of upstream supply chain.

First, e-cigarette structure overview

Before sorting out the distribution of the e-cigarette supply chain, we may wish to take a look at what the e-cigarette structure looks like.

There are many kinds of electronic cigarettes, disposable, change-type, open, large smoke, etc., but no matter what kind of electronic cigarettes, they are inseparable from three major components: atomization components, electronic components, and structural components.

Atomizing components: mainly atomizing core, oil storage cotton, etc., play the role of atomizing fume and storage fume;

Electronic components: including battery, microphone, solution board, etc., to provide power, control power, temperature, automatic switch and other functions;

Structural components: mainly shell, but also including thimble connector, battery bracket, sealing silicone, filter and so on.

In the supply chain of electronic cigarettes, in addition to the three major suppliers, there are important components such as equipment and supporting services, which are expanded one by one.

Second, atomizing components

Atomizing components are mainly all kinds of atomizing core (ceramic core, cotton core), heating wire, oil guide cotton, oil storage cotton and so on.

1. Atomizing core

Among them, the atomization core is composed of heating metal + oil guide material. Because the current electronic cigarette is mainly based on resistance heating, it is inseparable from heating metals such as iron chromium, nickel chromium, titanium, 316L stainless steel, palladium silver, tungsten alloy, etc., which can be made into heating wire, porous mesh, thick film printed metal film, PVD coating and other forms.

At the microscopic level, the fume oil is heated on the heating metal, and then from liquid to gas, and the macro performance is the process of atomization.

In practical applications, the heating metal is often matched with oil guiding materials, such as oil guiding cotton, porous ceramic matrix, etc., through winding, embedding, tile and other ways to combine, so that the design is to drain a small amount of soot to the heating metal through the oil guiding material, so as to facilitate the rapid atomization of soot.

In terms of types, atomizing core has two categories of cotton core and ceramic core, cotton core has heating wire wrapped cotton, etched mesh cotton, etc., ceramic core has buried wire ceramic core, mesh ceramic core, thick film printing ceramic core, etc. In addition, HNB heating elements have flake, needle, barrel and other types.

2. Oil storage cotton

Oil storage cotton, as the name suggests, plays the role of storage of tobacco oil, its application greatly improves the use experience of disposable electronic cigarettes, focuses on solving the serious problem of early disposable electronic cigarettes oil leakage, and greatly improves the number of mouths.

Oil storage cotton follows the rise of the disposable electronic cigarette market, but it does not stop at oil storage, and it also has a lot of market space in the application of filters.

In terms of process, oil storage cotton is generally prepared by extrusion fiber, hot melt and other processes, in the material, common PP, PET fiber, individual high temperature requirements, will use PA fiber, and even PI.

3. Electronic components

Electronic components include batteries, head, solution boards, etc., and further, include display screens, chips, PCB boards, fuses, thermistors, etc.

1. Batteries

The battery determines the length of the service life of e-cigarettes, and how long e-cigarettes can last depends on the battery capacity. E-cigarette batteries are divided into soft packs and hard shells, cylindrical and square, combined with cylindrical soft packs, square soft packs, cylindrical steel shell batteries and other types.

Electronic cigarette battery cathode materials include three kinds: pure cobalt series, ternary series, and the two mixed series.

The mainstream material in the market is pure cobalt, which has the advantages of high discharge voltage platform, large rate discharge, high energy density, etc. The voltage platform of pure cobalt is between 3.4-3.9V, and the ternary discharge platform is mainly 3.6-3.7V. There are also high requirements for discharge rates, with 8-10C discharge rates, such as 13350 and 13400 models, to achieve 3A continuous discharge capacity.

2. Mi head, solution board

Imidou is the current mainstream starting element of electronic cigarettes, electronic cigarettes can simulate the traditional smoking process, it is inseparable from the credit of imidou.

At present, the e-cigarette head generally refers to the combination of capacitive head + chip, which is installed on the program board, connected to the heating wire and battery through the line, and plays the role of intelligent startup, charge and discharge management, status indication, and output power management. In terms of type, imitron has a tendency to develop from electret to silicon wheat.

The solution board is to integrate various electronic components on the PCB board, such as the Mi head, display screen, MCU, Mi head, fuse, MOS tube, thermistor, etc. Board production process has welding line, SMT and so on.

3. Display, fuse, thermistor, etc

The display screen was first applied to tobacco products, used to display power, electricity, and even develop interactive gameplay, and then in a few change-type products have applications, the current application hotspot is a one-time small cigarette, with a certain head brand explosion as a starting point, the industry has followed up, mainly used to display oil, electricity.

It is reported that the fuse is about to play, the United States market has mandatory requirements, the purpose is to prevent electronic cigarettes in the use of short circuit explosion and other risks. Some foreigners like to open disposable electronic cigarettes, refill the oil, charge, the refill process will need a fuse to escort foreigners.

Four, structural components

The structural components include housing, oil tank, battery support, sealing silicone, spring thimble, magnet and other components.

1. Shell (plastic, aluminum)

No matter what kind of e-cigarette, or HNB heater, can not be separated from the shell. As the saying goes, man by clothes, products by the shell. Whether consumers choose you or not, the appearance is good or not plays a very important role.

The shell material of different products will have some differences. For example, disposable electronic cigarettes are mainly plastic shells, the material is PC, ABS, and the common process is ordinary injection molding + spray feel paint (gradual color/monochrome), and there are also flow patterns, two-color injection molding, sprinkling, free spraying, etc.

Of course, disposable electronic cigarettes also have the use of aluminum alloy shell + feel paint solution, and in order to provide a better feel, the bomb type is mostly used aluminum alloy, if like cigarette products, in order to increase the feel, it will also use a shell such as zinc alloy.

Of course, the shell is not a single material, can be combined to use, good looking on the line. For example, in the United Kingdom, a brand of crystal disposable electronic cigarettes is the use of PC transparent shell to create a crystal clear texture, which is supplemented by a gradual anodized aluminum alloy tube with rich colors.

In the surface treatment process, oil spraying (painting) is more common, in addition to direct stickers, pasting, IML, anodizing and so on.

2. Plastic parts such as oil tanks, battery brackets, and bases

In addition to the shell, e-cigarettes also have oil tanks, battery brackets, bases and other components, and the materials are PCTG (commonly used in oil tanks), PC/ABS, PEEK (commonly used in HNB heaters), PBT, PP, etc., which are basically injection molded parts and rarely alloy parts.

3. Sealing silicone

The use of sealed silicone for electronic cigarettes is mainly to prevent oil leakage, while making the structure of electronic cigarettes more compact and compact. Application parts such as suction nozzle sleeve, airway plug, oil bin base, mi head base, cartridge sealing ring of cartridge changing products, sealing ring of large smoke atomization core, etc.

4. Spring thimble, magnet

Spring thimble, also known as Pogo pin, spring pin connector, charging pin connector, probe connector, etc., is mainly used in bomb changers, CBD atomizers, large smoke products, HNB heaters, because these types of atomization structures are separate from the battery rod, so you need a thimble to connect, generally used with magnets.

5. Equipment

Equipment throughout the entire industry chain, as long as there is a processing place, there is the existence of equipment, such as oil filling machine, cashing machine, laminating machine, laser equipment, CCD optical machine, automated testing machine, automated assembly, etc., there are common models in the market, but also non-standard customized development models.

6. Supporting services

Supporting services, mainly refers to logistics, financial account opening, agent handling, testing and certification and so on.

1. Logistics

Electronic cigarettes to export, can not be separated from logistics. It is reported that there are more than 20 companies specializing in e-cigarette logistics in Shenzhen, and the competition is very fierce. In this piece of customs clearance, there is also a lot of knowledge hidden.

2. Open financial accounts

The financial sector is very large, in order to avoid misunderstanding, it is emphasized here that the bank is mainly involved in the account opening. It is not fully understood that at present, many e-cigarette overseas account holders have found HSBC; The domestic tobacco administration this business cooperation bank, CMB and Everbright; In addition, some banks with unique service products are also looking at the e-cigarette market, such as the Bank of Ningbo, which is understood to have a system that can track the movement of overseas funds in real time.

3. Agent certificate

It is well understood that to carry out domestic production, you need a license, and there will be some specialized consulting agencies. At the same time, in some overseas countries and regions, there will be similar policy requirements, such as Indonesia, it is reported that there are also certificate requirements, similarly, there are some special agent certification agencies.

4. Testing and certification

Testing and certification, such as exporting to Europe, there will be some TPD certification and the like, different countries and regions, there will be some certification requirements, which requires some professional testing and certification bodies to carry out services.

Sum up

The above is about the combing of the e-cigarette supply chain, you can see that behind the small e-cigarette, is a large and complex industrial system.