The number of adults who vape will reach almost 55 million by 2021, according to market research group Euromonitor.
Keystone
The American company JUUL, which specializes in the manufacture of electronic cigarettes that look like thumb drives, is preparing to set up in the Swiss city of Zug, according to the Zefix trade register.
This information was disclosed in the Thursday edition of the Handelszeitung newspaper.
Juul Labs Switzerland is listed on the commercial registerExternal link as a producer, distributor or exporter for the retail and wholesale trade of electronic cigarettes and accessories.
The Swiss subsidiary of the Californian group is managed by Jacob Bollag, according to an entry dated 24 September.
The German-language newspaper states that JUUL had filed an entry in the trademark register with the federal authorities in April.
The San Francisco-based company, headed by Kevin Burns and founded in 2015, recently raised $1.2 billion in funds, valuing Juul at $15 billion, according to Bloomberg. Juul has captured 68% of the American electronic cigarette market.
At the moment E-cigarettes containing nicotine are considered a commodity under Swiss law and are not included within restrictions on conventional cigarettes. However, pending new laws would include E-cigarettes under a list of tobacco products that should not be sold or marketed to under-18s.
Many manufacturers and retailers of E-cigarettes in Switzerland have signed up to a voluntary ban on the sale to minors until the Swiss law change comes into effect.
Across the Atlantic, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is cracking down on e-cigarettes.
On Tuesday, the FDA announced it had seized more than a thousand pages of documents from Juul Labs related to the company’s sales and marketing practices after a surprise inspection.
In September, the regulator said it was mulling a ban on flavored e-cigarettes from JUUL and others to battle the “epidemic”of youth e-cigarette consumption.
The company’s retail sales grew more than seven-fold from 2016 to 2017, according to a study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), cited by Reuters.External link
The CDC study found that JUUL comprised nearly 1 in 3 e-cigarette sales in the United States.
Popular Stories
More
Culture
Documentary portrays Swiss teenagers forced to return to parents’ homeland
Should raw milk sales be banned or should consumers decide?
Swiss food regulations do not allow raw milk to be sold for direct consumption. However, a loophole allows 400 raw milk vending machines to do just that.
AI can reduce the number of animals needed for research
This content was published on
Swiss researchers have developed a new, AI-supported method that analyses the behaviour of mice in the laboratory more efficiently.
Geneva Conventions conference on Middle East scheduled for March 2025
This content was published on
The conference on the Middle East of the 196 States party to the Geneva Conventions, organised by Switzerland, will take place in Geneva in March.
Swiss university graduates are popular hires worldwide
This content was published on
Graduates of Swiss universities are popular with international employers, according to the Global Employability University Rankings.
French cross-border workers in Switzerland fear ‘discriminatory’ unemployment reform
This content was published on
In the French region around Geneva, cross-border workers are protesting proposals to cut unemployment benefits for those working in Switzerland.
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.
Read more
More
Switzerland: the land of the tobacco industry
This content was published on
Though Switzerland has not yet ratified the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, Geneva is hosting an important meeting on the treaty.
This content was published on
In 2012, 9,500 people died of illnesses connected to tobacco, such as lung cancer or heart attacks. This made up around 15% of all deaths. The number of men dying from tobacco-related illnesses went down by 13% during the same time period, to 6,200 such deaths in 2012. The same year 3,300 women died from…
This content was published on
The first Swiss tobacco fields appeared in the Basel region around 1680. Today, tobacco is still grown in Ajoie in the north-west, in eastern Switzerland, in the Lucerne and Aargau regions, but especially in the Broye district, in the French-speaking part of the country, where 80% of Swiss production is concentrated. Tobacco plants cover the…
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.