The latest announcement from RLX Technology Inc. (RLX.US), China’s equivalent U.S. vaping pioneer Juul, is giving investors a clearer picture on how new regulations in its home market will affect the company. Our analysis shows the company believes its business will drop by 30% or more this year under the new rules, which are part of a broader wave of initiatives to reduce or stamp out vaping around the world.
We’ll explain shortly how we got to the 30% figure, which was derived from a Friday announcement detailing a new business license RLX received under China’s new regulation rolled out earlier this year.
But truth be told, the new regulation could have a much more chilling effect on RLX, which controls more than half China’s vaping market thanks to a savvy marketing strategy that has seen its small kiosks become fixtures in malls and other locations throughout China. We suspect many of those shops could start to disappear in the year ahead as the company tries to control costs due to sharp sales declines associated with the new regulations.