---
title: "How RELX Became the No.1 in the E-Cigarette Market? Star Companies All Share These 5 Secrets"
description: "Becoming a globally recognized brand is the vision of many startups, from Apple, Huawei, GE, and P&G to Alibaba and Tencent. In the booming e-cigarette industry, RELX has emerged as a global brand, holding a 44% market share in China's closed-system e-cigarette market, far surpassing the combined share of the 2nd to 10th players, making it the undisputed No.1 in China. RELX recently launched three new products, including the RELX ME app, the RELX Lingdian smart vaping device, and a facial-recognition vending machine, aiming to build a new consumption ecosystem of 'mobile internet + smart hardware + new retail'."
author: "New Distribution"
publisher: "New Distribution"
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published: "2019-08-18"
language: "en"
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# How RELX Became the No.1 in the E-Cigarette Market? Star Companies All Share These 5 Secrets

> Becoming a globally recognized brand is the vision of many startups, from Apple, Huawei, GE, and P&G to Alibaba and Tencent. In the booming e-cigarette industry, RELX has emerged as a global brand, holding a 44% market share in China's closed-system e-cigarette market, far surpassing the combined share of the 2nd to 10th players, making it the undisputed No.1 in China. RELX recently launched three new products, including the RELX ME app, the RELX Lingdian smart vaping device, and a facial-recognition vending machine, aiming to build a new consumption ecosystem of 'mobile internet + smart hardware + new retail'.

Becoming a globally recognized brand is the vision and goal of many startups. From Apple, Huawei, GE, and P&G to Alibaba and Tencent, they have all become world-renowned brands. Currently, in the red-hot e-cigarette industry, a globally acclaimed brand has emerged: RELX. According to Euromonitor International data, RELX holds a 44% market share in China's closed-system e-cigarette industry, far exceeding the combined share of the 2nd to 10th players, making it the undisputed No.1 e-cigarette brand in China.

RELX recently launched three new products: the RELX ME app, the RELX Lingdian smart vaping device, and a facial-recognition vending machine, aiming to create a new consumption ecosystem of "mobile internet + smart hardware + new retail" to comprehensively upgrade the user experience.

In early 2018, RELX released its first e-cigarette product, marking the beginning of the pod-mod era in China, with capital and brands flooding in. "The average annual compound growth rate of China's closed-system e-cigarette market is as high as 65%, making it the most prominent growth category in the consumer goods industry in recent years," said Yan Chao, chief spokesperson for the tobacco industry at Euromonitor.

What's interesting is that this "thousand-brand war" differs from previous battles in other sectors. The competition in the e-cigarette industry is fierce only among second- and third-tier brands, while RELX, as the market leader with an unassailable market share, has already won without even participating.

**Why Did It Become the No.1 Brand in the Industry?**

**RELX Exhibits the Five Characteristics of a Dark Horse**

Why has RELX been able to become the No.1 e-cigarette brand in such a short time?

In summary, it's about "seeing the future, seizing the right timing, and having the right product." The e-cigarette market has vast prospects, the industry chain is now complete, and user demand for innovative e-cigarette products is increasing. By assessing the situation and acting swiftly, RELX has continuously launched new products and improved user experience within just over a year of its founding, achieving rapid development.

Of course, to become a long-lasting brand, strategic vision and long-term perspective are essential. RELX also focuses on long-term planning, even if it means greater investment.

Finding industry dark horses and exploring market blue oceans are what investors constantly seek, and also what many people look for in their careers. The reason RELX can be an industry dark horse is that the characteristics of star companies have always been traceable.

Boston Consulting Group once analyzed many successful companies and released a report titled "Building a World-Class Value-Creating Enterprise Group," identifying five key factors for success.

**Corporate mission and values are the perpetual motion machine for business longevity.** Companies continuously build brand assets and fulfill their corporate mission, making their brands trustworthy in consumers' minds. RELX has been practicing its corporate mission and values: the "Guardian Plan" protects minors, strictly prohibiting use by those under 18; the "Golden Shield Action" ensures brand authenticity, leaving no room for counterfeit products. RELX's founding team also won the "2018 Most Socially Responsible Entrepreneur Award."

**Sufficient capital flow accelerates corporate growth.** Smart companies are adept at using flexible and ample capital to quickly invest in emerging areas, thereby achieving rapid expansion. In this regard, RELX has leveraged capital as a booster, not only ranking first in cumulative financing in the e-cigarette industry but also quickly becoming the No.1 e-cigarette brand in China, setting the trend for the market. Going forward, RELX will continue to introduce high-quality financing to build a more diversified business model.

**Strategic talent reserves are the fuel for sustainable development.** Such companies excel at building sustainable talent pipelines and providing stable career paths for their employees. In terms of talent, RELX has always placed great importance on people. Not only does its founding team have a star aura, but it is also very strict in recruitment and selection. RELX has quickly established a diversified, high-quality talent recruitment management system. In just a year and a half, RELX has built a team of 400 people, who come from the best companies in various industries and graduated from top global universities such as Columbia, Stanford, Oxford, and Cambridge. For the global market, RELX also focuses on recruiting outstanding international talent.

**Continuous R&D investment keeps the company at the forefront of trends.** RELX spares no effort in investing resources in R&D, continuously leading industry development. From the momentum of launching three new products at its 2019 new product launch, it's easy to see RELX's R&D speed. Some domestic industry insiders even exclaim that RELX's R&D speed represents the R&D speed of the e-cigarette industry.

**Cross-industry information insight makes the company more comprehensive and multi-dimensional.** Such companies often quickly accumulate first-hand data and information across industries and regions through diversified cross-industry operations or ecosystem building, gaining insights into industry changes, and then optimizing business models, product design, etc. In line with RELX's cross-industry innovation model, its business integrates the user operation thinking of internet companies, the channel refinement concept of FMCG companies, and the innovative spirit of leading R&D enterprises. This benefits from the cross-industry genes of RELX's star founding team, which includes talents from Uber, Huawei, P&G, L'Oréal, and other cross-industry renowned companies.

**Becoming the Vane of the E-Cigarette Market: Where Does RELX's R&D and Product Ecosystem Lead?**

RELX not only aims to be the leader in the e-cigarette industry but also strives to become a globally leading consumer goods brand.

Currently, RELX has invested over ten million yuan to build the RELX Lab and has devoted substantial resources to consumer research, making it the brand that best understands e-cigarette consumers.

Going further, RELX will also launch scientific research cooperation plans, basic R&D plans, supply chain layout plans, and the U.S. PMTA plan. It is precisely this generous R&D investment that has driven RELX's astonishing new product development speed, launching four new products in four months and increasing PCT international patents from 0 to over 20.

Based on its strong R&D capabilities, RELX recently released the new RELX Lingdian smart vaping device. It is reported that the Lingdian has significantly upgraded the experience, equipped with the 4th generation FEELM ceramic heating element, making the vapor finer and greatly improving atomization quality, maintaining RELX's consistent smooth and mellow taste.

The leak-proof capability of the Lingdian is also worth mentioning. Based on RELX's self-developed, redesigned pod structure from scratch, with a four-layer sealing design, its leak-proof capability reaches the industry's top level.

The new-generation BLE Bluetooth chip in the Lingdian not only greatly improves performance and stability but is also more than twice as fast as ordinary chips. The Lingdian also adopts Type-C fast charging, allowing insertion in either direction, fully charging in 45 minutes, with a battery life equivalent to "a pack of cigarettes."

It is worth noting that in addition to the Lingdian, RELX also released the RELX ME app and the RELX facial-recognition vending machine. With this, RELX has created a new consumption ecosystem of "mobile internet + smart hardware + new retail," pointing the way for the industry's development.

It is precisely because of RELX's all-round investment in multiple aspects that it has quickly won the hearts of many young and middle-aged people, with a consumer NPS score of 56, surpassing many globally renowned brands.

**RELX Solidifies Its No.1 Position, Yet the Market Space Remains Vast**

To some extent, RELX has secured its position as China's No.1 e-cigarette brand because it reinvented the e-cigarette. With the first RELX e-cigarette launched in early 2018, RELX brought China's e-cigarette from big clouds to the pod-mod era, transforming e-cigarettes from a niche product for specific players to a mass consumer product for smokers, and making marketing models more diversified. RELX changed the mainstream product form, target audience, and marketing model of e-cigarettes in China.

**Compared to developed e-cigarette markets like the U.S., China's e-cigarette market has enormous future potential.** According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, as of 2017, the e-cigarette penetration rate in the U.S. was 26%, while in China it was only 1-2%. Since the second half of 2018, China's e-cigarette market entered the "first year" of pod-mods, with e-cigarette manufacturers led by RELX driving the entire industry into a period of rapid growth.

Furthermore, from a global perspective, RELX's growth rate since its launch is the fastest in the world. Although JUUL's market share has been gradually increasing, in terms of growth rate, RELX's market growth in the year and a half since its launch has been faster than JUUL's in the same period.

Looking at the global development trend of the e-cigarette industry, with more companies entering the market, the global e-cigarette market will maintain an average annual compound growth rate of over 65%, and is expected to reach a market size of over $50 billion by 2025. The market space is very broad, and the future development potential for RELX is also enormous.

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