Indonesia E-cigarette Market Size & Share Analysis - Growth Trends and Forecast (2026 - 2031)

Indonesia E-cigarette Market Trends and Insights

Growing Awareness of Alternative Smoking Products

The Indonesia e-cigarette market benefited from the country’s large conventional smoking base. Adult male smoking prevalence reached 57.9% in 2023, creating a broad group of consumers who may consider alternative nicotine products^{[1]Source: World Health Organization Indonesia, “World No Tobacco Day 2025, WHO Hails Indonesia's Bold Reforms, Calls for Decisive Action on Standardized Packaging”, who.int} . Awareness has also moved beyond niche hobby users. APVI indicated that active e-cigarette users exceeded 4 million in 2024, rising from a much smaller base only a few years earlier. In major cities such as Jakarta and Surabaya, product trials spread through workplaces, cafes, vape shops, and social circles, making e-cigarettes more visible to potential users. The Indonesia e-cigarette market also gained from GR 28/2024, which treated e-cigarettes as a separate addictive substance category rather than fully combining them with conventional tobacco. This regulatory distinction helped consumers view e-cigarettes as a separate product class. As testing and registration rules became clearer, formal products gained more credibility than illicit and unregistered items, supporting stronger conversion from curiosity to paid use.

Rising Acceptance of Vaping as a Lifestyle Choice

The Indonesia e-cigarette market showed demand patterns driven largely by lifestyle use rather than smoking cessation alone. Vaping gained cultural relevance in cafes, nightlife venues, and youth social settings, increasing its visibility as a daily accessory rather than as a medical or quitting tool. A 2025 study in Jurnal Sosial Teknologi found that social media content on e-cigarettes in Indonesia was largely positive, while warnings were often limited or visually weak, helping create a more favorable public image. Bali clearly reflected this trend, as BPS-reported e-cigarette prevalence in the province reached 2.24% in March 2025, the highest in Indonesia, indicating that tourism-heavy and outward-looking environments accelerated adoption. The market also showed a shift toward culturally localized products, as brands developed flavors around local taste cues and competed on familiarity and identity, in addition to hardware features.

Strong Influence of Youth and Young-Adult Preferences

The Indonesia e-cigarette market remained highly exposed to youth and young-adult behavior, despite stricter formal legal purchasing-age requirements. The 2023 Global School-Based Health Survey found that 12.4% of Indonesian students aged 13 to 17 currently used e-cigarettes, indicating strong upstream demand signals before many consumers reached the legal purchasing age. A 2025 study in BMC Public Health found that social media exposure and peer influence were the strongest drivers of initiation, with both factors reinforcing each other rather than acting independently. Research from Diponegoro University in 2024 showed that adolescents exposed to online e-cigarette advertising were 2.91 times more likely to have ever used e-cigarettes, highlighting the continued importance of digital discovery for this age group. As nearly 40% of Indonesia’s population is under 25, the Indonesia e-cigarette market continued to receive a steady inflow of new legal-age consumers, even if average penetration moderated over time.

Product Innovation and Device Variety

The Indonesia e-cigarette market has shifted from open-system devices and do-it-yourself liquids to a wider mix of closed pods, refillable devices, disposables, and heated tobacco products. This shift reflects rising demand for convenience, portability, consistent quality, and easier use as the consumer base expands beyond hobby-led early adopters. PT Delta Sukses Teknologi’s planned launch of the DJOY BEAM Series in September 2025 shows that local manufacturers are competing not only on price but also on interface design, coil technology, and user experience. Regulation is also shaping product development, as GR 28/2024 packaging rules and cartridge volume limits fit more easily with standardized pod systems than with unbranded open systems. PMI’s VEEV NOW ULTRA, which offers 1,100 puffs and uses 75% recycled aluminum, shows how companies are combining device design, convenience, and sustainability-led positioning to appeal to urban consumers.

Uncertain Regulatory Enforcement

The Indonesia e-cigarette market faced its biggest restraint from uncertainty in how rules would be enforced across cities and districts. GR 28/2024 imposed age verification, school-distance restrictions, and testing obligations, but implementation capacity was uneven across Indonesia’s large and fragmented administrative structure. APVI warned that strict application of the 200-meter school-distance rule in dense cities could force many vape stores to relocate or close, especially in Java where urban retail clusters are tightly packed. The Indonesia e-cigarette market also faced a difficult balance between compliance and affordability, because stronger enforcement against illicit supply could raise prices in the formal channel and push some consumers toward unregulated products instead of away from vaping. BPOM’s expanded supervisory role under the 2025 framework was an important step, but turning central authority into consistent field enforcement across an archipelagic country remained a multi-year task.

Ban or Limits on Certain Additives and Flavors

The Indonesia e-cigarette market remained vulnerable to flavor and additive controls, as demand depended more on a wide range of flavors than on nicotine delivery alone. GR 28/2024 allowed the Health Ministry to maintain and update lists of prohibited substances, creating ongoing uncertainty for producers that relied on specific formulations. This pressure was already evident by 2025, when PPEI reported that successive excise hikes and expectations of tighter additive controls had reduced active liquid producers from more than 300 to 170. As a result, the market could shift further toward closed-system pods if local liquid makers lose the ability to refresh flavors quickly or manage compliance costs. BPOM’s mandatory laboratory testing rules also raised barriers, as flavor innovation had long helped domestic e-liquid brands retain users, and pre-market testing slowed that product refresh cycle.

*Our forecasts treat driver/restraint impacts as directional, not additive. The impact forecasts reflect baseline growth, mix effects, and variable interactions.

Segment Analysis

By Product Type: Devices Anchor Share, E-Liquids Set the Pace

E-cigarette devices held 77.54% of the Indonesia e-cigarette market in 2025, which showed that category entry still depended heavily on an initial hardware purchase before repeat liquid spending built up. The Indonesia e-cigarette market developed around hardware-led adoption because users typically began with a device decision and only later formed brand loyalty around pods or liquids. Closed-system and pod-based formats gained ground over open-system mods between 2020 and 2025 as convenience, portability, and easier everyday use became more important in urban settings. This shift also aligned with GR 28/2024 cartridge rules, so device formats that already fit those specifications were better placed to scale in formal retail.

E-liquid accounted for the remaining 22.5% share in 2025 and is forecast to grow at 13.23% CAGR through 2031, making it the faster-moving side of the Indonesia e-cigarette market as the installed base of device users expands recurring consumption. That growth path reflected repeat purchase behavior, since once a device entered regular use, liquid and pod replenishment became the more frequent spending line. The Indonesia e-cigarette industry had historically supported a wide local flavor culture with hundreds of producers, which made liquids the most diverse part of the category. That diversity gave local brands an edge in taste familiarity and price flexibility, even when multinational brands led in device systems.

By Distribution Channel: Modern Trade Organizes the Market, E-Commerce Redefines Access

Modern trade held 65.95% of the Indonesia e-cigarette market size in 2025, reflecting how strongly the category was moving toward formal retail environments with better control over age checks and product display. The Indonesia e-cigarette market favored modern trade because regulation increasingly rewarded channels that could show clear operating procedures and stable store standards. Organized minimarkets and chain-led outlets also gave brands better visibility, more predictable merchandising, and wider reach than fragmented independent stores. This made formal retail not just a sales route, but also a compliance signal for both consumers and regulators.

E-commerce is projected to grow at 15.41% CAGR from 2026 to 2031, which makes it the fastest-moving channel in the Indonesia e-cigarette market even though formal restrictions remain. Digital retail benefited from Indonesia’s broad online shopping culture and from the fact that adult buyers already used major platforms for other lifestyle and personal products. The Indonesia e-cigarette market also showed an unusual digital pattern, because web-based transactions remained more relevant than mobile app listings due to platform restrictions on vaping products. This did not stop online demand, but it did make the channel more intentional and less impulse-driven.

Geography Analysis

Jakarta held 40.49% of the Indonesia e-cigarette market share in 2025, which reflected the city’s concentration of purchasing power, formal retail infrastructure, and flagship brand activity. The Indonesia e-cigarette market centered heavily on Jakarta because the capital combined dense consumer traffic with a stronger modern trade footprint than any other city in the country. Premium closed-pod products found a natural base there, as higher disposable incomes supported more frequent spending on branded devices and refills. The wider Jabodetabek area deepened that advantage by linking Jakarta to adjacent urban clusters where vape boutiques, specialty stores, and chain outlets were already established.

Jakarta’s lead was not only about population scale. It also reflected how multinational brands typically used the capital as the first launch point for new devices, pods, and retail partnerships before broader expansion. That gave Jakarta a role as both the largest revenue center and the most important testing ground for pricing, promotion, and compliance-led retail models. In the Indonesia e-cigarette market, brands that performed poorly in Jakarta often lacked the confidence or cash flow to scale nationally. The city therefore shaped national competition more than its raw share alone suggested.

Surabaya is forecast to grow at 14.54% CAGR through 2031, which makes it the fastest-moving city in the Indonesia e-cigarette market. That pace reflected the city’s balance of purchasing power, local brand presence, and lower competitive saturation compared with Jabodetabek. PT Rokok Elektrik Enak, known through the Vapeboss brand, is based in Surabaya, which gave the city a stronger embedded domestic ecosystem than many other regional markets. The Indonesia e-cigarette market also treated Surabaya as a practical second-city expansion target because it combined a large young-adult consumer base with its role as the main commercial hub for East Java.