Thank you all for joining me today. Knowing the audience, I will try to focus on a few key points, instead of going through the whole presentation. Obviously, you have access to the presentation online, so you can look through things I don't cover today. First of all, we are a NASDAQ-traded company. We are in the space of developing, commercializing, and manufacturing vaping devices. Vaping, probably we are the only vaping technology company at this conference. What does it mean, in terms of vaping devices? It really covers two key areas. Number one is the worldwide e-cigarette, very popular e-cigarette industry. Number two is really vaping devices related to the cannabis and CBD industry. Our focus has really been on the global e-cig industry. These are just a few product samples, as you can see here.
Also, at a high level, we, last fiscal year that ended in June, we delivered $127 million in revenue. More importantly, because we are a technology-oriented company, we own a large number of core technology patents in the whole space. The company was started a long time ago by our founder, and he introduced the world's first commercially available e-cigarette under the brand name of Aspire, A-S-P-I-R-E. For about six years, between then and 2016, we were the number one selling brand in the U.S. until Juul came in, of course, completely turning the market upside down. Speaking of technology, I'll just highlight a couple of things here, because I have a lot more detail to cover on the next few slides. As I said, we developed a large portfolio of core patents across the years. On one hand, we certainly have a great deal of legal protection.
On the other hand, we never really historically went after people who copied our technology, our IP. That is not saying we will not pursue retribution from people who used our IP illegally. As a company, we generate our revenue truly on a global basis. Europe represents roughly half of our total revenue. North America, roughly 40%, and the rest of the world make up the rest of the revenue. This is a slide I want to spend most of my time on today. If you look at our business, fundamentally, we have four key pillars. Pillar number one is what we call point-of-use age-gating or age-verification technology. In the U.S., as in the world, in the last 10 years, we all know, with the popularity of e-cigarette, unfortunately, kids, youth have easy access to e-cigarette. Things they would otherwise not do, they are doing now.
They are getting hooked on nicotine. Of course, this is largely caused by Juul marketing to school kids. More importantly, this is due to the very simple fact there is no way right now in the market to control who is to use the device. We all know in the U.S., as in the world, there is, quote-unquote, "age verification" at the point of sales. In some situations, it's really just verifying who the purchaser is, but it doesn't control who the end user ends up to be, right? Often, adults would buy a cigarette and alcohol, only to turn around to hand it to a youngster to use. Really, we know age verification at the point of sales doesn't mean anything to this industry. That's number one. Number two, worldwide, especially in the U.S., unanimously, e-cigarette users would say they prefer flavored e-cigarette. Flavored means fruit flavors, right?
Mango is a very popular flavor. Banana is another very popular flavor, for example. Flavor is exactly what got kids to use e-cigarette. However, flavor is exactly what adult users would much rather have. However, in the U.S., as in the world, there is a bit of a contradiction right now. Adults all want flavored e-cigarette. Yet, in the U.S., the regulators, FDA, doesn't have a solution. FDA, many years ago, implemented a so-called PMTA process. It's called pre-market tobacco applications process, meaning before you are allowed to sell your products, you have to get FDA's sign-off. FDA sign-off means the product needs to meet a safety standard, meaning they will not cause illness in consumers. That's number one. Number two, marketing standard. You cannot market the product directly or indirectly to underaged users. Only after you pass that review process would your product be allowed to be sold.
However, FDA is really caught in between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, it knows adult users want flavored e-cigarette. On the other hand, they know if they allow any flavored e-cigarette out there, kids will get their hands on the devices. In the last many years, the only thing FDA was able to do is to approve so-called tobacco-flavored e-cigarette. In a way, they regulate e-cigarette the way they regulate combustible cigarette, which is really not the right way to do this. Why? Because by only authorizing tobacco-flavored e-cigarette, essentially, the FDA is pushing adult consumers to elicit our black market. Right now, in the U.S., legal FDA-approved products account for less than 10% of total e-cigarette sales. The other 90+% all come from the illicit market. Why? Because the illicit market offers flavors.
American consumers and worldwide consumers are risking their lives, so to speak, risking their health to go to the illicit market to buy things that taste good. FDA is really caught in that unique position. FDA really doesn't have a solution for this problem. We developed a solution late last year. We call it point-of-use age-gating or age verification. The technology is very simple. It's a small, tiny blockchain chip. It's a blockchain-based technology, and we added Bluetooth communication capabilities to the chip. We would attach the chip to the power source, which is a printed circuit board. The chip would actually turn the power on or off. The process for age verification goes like this. You buy the device. Typically, people will just buy it and put it in your mouth and start using it right away. In this case, you can't do that. You try to activate it.
It doesn't work. You have to download an app. The app will take you through a quick one-minute, one-and-a-half-minute initial process that will take a look at your driver's license or passport or any other form of official IDs to prove you are indeed 21 years or older. However, in order to prove the person is indeed what's shown on the ID card, you have to take a live photo of yourself, live. The key is live. It's a 3D. It's not a 2D photo because we don't want for kids to use their mom and dad's driver's license, copy of the license, and a copy of mom and dad's photo, right? It's a 3D photo that will verify you are indeed the person listed on the ID card. Only then would the device be powered up, and then you can use it.
We presented this technology to the FDA last November, and they absolutely liked it a lot. Some people at the FDA called it the holy grail that they have been looking for, because this can finally have a technology that solves the problem of offering flavored e-cigarettes without kids being able to use them. FDA went so far as to suggest to us, instead of just using this technology for ourselves, by ourselves, for our own products, they suggested for us to work with them through an applications process to create a so-called component PMTA, component, meaning the solution component. We followed their lead. Early this year, we conducted a so-called clinical trial, randomly picking out hundreds of customers across the nation, and without any advice or guidance from us, let them work through the process themselves. We have a white paper on that topic, and it's 100% effective.
From 21-year-old user- 75-year-old user, they can all do it themselves effectively with a success rate of 100%. With that data, we turned our application in in May, and the FDA, obviously, is looking at this on a so-called fast-track basis. The objective here, based on FDA's suggestion, is once we get this particular solution approved by the FDA, we can then license this solution to all tobacco players, big tobacco, small tobacco players. Anybody with access to this technology will be able to offer fruit-flavored e-cigarette because FDA would know underaged users will not be able to use a device. That's the process we are going through right now. FDA is reviewing this, quote-unquote, "on a fast-track basis." Fast-track for FDA, obviously, is different from fast-track for all of us in this room, right?
A typical FDA approval process for tobacco products is a two to three-year time frame. In this case, it could be as fast as five to six months. That's based on their feedback. We are very optimistic about this solution. Like I said, we turned it in in late May, so we are hoping to get feedback from the FDA rather soon. That's pillar number one. Really very important technology for us and for the industry. We certainly hope this plays out. Outside of the U.S., of course, we are also getting traction. We know truly, truly democratic countries would take a while to make age-gating a requirement. We are working with some of such countries as well as some countries with relatively simpler democracy, where decision-making would be much, much faster.
On that front, at least three such countries are reviewing this, and they are anticipating some sort of a mandation for point-of-use age-gating in the coming year. We are taking this to a global audience. We are gaining momentum on all fronts. U.K. Parliament debated this technology for the last six months. There is a high probability it will get into the January U.K. tobacco bill. We are, of course, working actively on that front. That's number one. Number two pillar, important to our business is our Malaysian setup. Four years ago, we anticipated the geopolitical situation between the U.S. and China would only get worse. Tariff would become a barrier to trade. We decided to look for another location for a factory. After searching through the whole Southeast Asia, we decided to go with Malaysia. We set up our factory in Johor, Malaysia, right across the border from Singapore.
We have two factories there, and we are in the process of securing the third factory. The third factory actually will be what we call the Aspire Campus. We are negotiating right now with the landlord on a 200-acre parcel to build potentially up to 2 million sq ft of a production facility, partially for the reason I mentioned, tariff consideration, partially because we secured Malaysia's first and only nicotine manufacturing license, meaning we are the only company allowed to produce nicotine products in Malaysia for export and for domestic consumption. That's why we are embracing three factories there. Additionally, as part of the age-gating technology that we have been talking to tobacco players about, we also, in the process, have been talking to many of them about our technology background and our innovations.
If you look at the last point here, point number four, because we innovated so much of the industry's core technologies, most recently, we introduced a so-called GMESH technology. GMESH technology is a very revolutionary technology. If you look at all the e-cigarettes worldwide today, we are talking about tens of billions of e-cigarettes sold every year worldwide. They all contain a ceramic core in the center. Ceramic is used as the wicking mechanism to conduct oil from the oil reservoir to the heating element. Ceramic core has one major drawback. Over many heating cycles, it can, it's not, I'm not saying it will, it can break apart, meaning ceramic powder would get into the vapor, and naturally, it will get into consumers' lungs. That's why I mentioned FDA is very much into protecting consumers. In the last three years, we developed a technology that's glass-based.
There's no way it will ever break down or have any particles that fall off of it. We developed the, the reason it took three years is because the key is in the manufacturing process. We are able to create a very efficient manufacturing process where we can create microchannels inside the glass, microchannel, fine, fine, fine, fine channels inside the glass, so that it can conduct oil effectively. We launched this technology early this year, and that immediately got the attention of all the big tobacco players. As a result of that, combined with our age-gating technology, we have been talking to all big tobacco top five. You all know who they are, about a potential development and manufacturing deal, which they all demanded has to be produced outside China. Our Malaysian factory comes handy for that. That's why we are building, we are scaling the production in Malaysia.
Lastly, in the last four months, no, actually, since February, we have scaled back our exposure to the cannabis space, and we focused only on high-quality customers rather than quantity of revenue. High-quality means customers with a strong financial position who can pay us timely. That's a key pivot. For us, we are not going to spend as much energy on the cannabis industry as we did before until there is a signed federal legalization or rescheduling, de-scheduling. That's a key pivot in the last, I would say, seven, eight months. Those are the four key pillars I want to share with you. The rest of my presentation, I think information, you already know. As you know, nicotine vaping on a global basis is still a fast-growing industry. Even in the first market, North America, it's still growing, not to mention in other developing markets.
I sort of covered the FDA involvement in the vaping industry and the pre-market tobacco process. We, of course, will have our own e-cigarette devices for PMTA applications. The very core of that is age-gating. We will use it as well as we will license it to other players. We talked about this. We talked about that. Malaysia, we did. Cannabis, we covered. Leadership team, and I just want to make sure there is enough time for Q&A. Yes?
It is gained in, potential licensing, right? It's also p otential opportunities to maybe move towards some of the bad actors that have been flooding the market with illegal products. Have a shared stance on that?
Yeah. Like I said, in the U.S., the illicit market is nine times the legal market. It's hard to believe, but that's reality. Obviously, not only the regulators, the government, parents in particular, are really, really worried about that. With age-gating, it solves both problems. Number one, it will allow adult users to use flavored e-cigarette. On the other hand, it would prevent youth from using e-cigarette. That's the very reason FDA embraced the technology. That's the very reason big tobaccos are embracing. Right now, we are in deep conversations with the top five majors, in terms of a licensing deal. On the other hand, many smaller players out there reached out to us wanting this as well, not only for the U.S. market, for a global market as well. On the other hand, at this point, I don't have the crystal ball.
Who is to say at some point, a big tobacco player doesn't want to monopolize the market with this technology? Of course, I want for this technology to be widely available. Did I answer your question? Okay.
The growth, the Asia-Pacific area, what is the actual growth rate of e-cigs in China? Is it getting adopted, or is it just not?
E-cig on a global basis is interesting. Every region has different regulation, of course, and different consumer behaviors. The question is specific, about China. China is a unique situation. China actually is a market where the regulator happens to be the largest player as well. China Tobacco is China's regulator, but it's also a brand. It's also a supplier. China Tobacco contributes to 1/5 of China's total tax revenue, 1/5. It's in their best interest to keep selling combustibles, of course, self-serving. On the other hand, obviously, they also have the duty for protecting youth. From their point of view, they do have regulation, but the regulation is really weird in that there's not a national standard. Rather, it's carried out by provincial regulators who serve the China Tobacco monster. Okay. Yeah, I'll be available outside the room.