Euromonitor International said yesterday that the value of sales within the global e-vapor category had nearly doubled between 2013 and 2014, when they reached US$6.0 billion.
E-vapor sales last year had eclipsed those of nicotine replacement therapy products which had totaled US$2.4 billion, it added.
The number of vapers reached 13 million worldwide in 2014, but the US dominated the e-vapor market with sales of US$2.8 billion.
Other markets with high e-vapor sales were the UK, Italy, Poland and France.
But Bosnia-Herzegovina, Switzerland, Japan, the US and Egypt had the fastest growing markets.
Euromonitor said the vapor market was estimated to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 29.3 percent to reach US$23.0 billion in 2019.
Zora Milenkovic, Euromonitor’s head of tobacco research, said however that these forecasts would have to be cut if legislation such as that to do with e-vapor taxation and public vaping bans became widespread.
If legislation remained as it is, the vapor market could surpass US$50 billion by 2030, Milenkovic added.