E Ink Holdings say that demand for e-readers and electronic shelf labels improved in the last quarter, and the company expects a small growth in revenues. EIH says that Coronavirus outbreak is having only a minor impact on its operations.

In fact, EIH already said earlier this month that remote work and school projects are increasing demand for e-notebooks, and now the company says that the outbreak also increases demand for e-readers, ESLs and medical devices, especially in China. The company does see a slowdown in actual installations of ESLs projects in Europe and US where cities are in lockdown.

E Ink Holdings (EIH) says it sees high demand for e-notebook displays, as these devices are increasing in popularity for smart online teaching applications - especially as the coronavirus outbreak spreads.

Digitimes reports that companies in China are launching new e-notebook solutions, as China's education ministry is promoting smart remote teaching as on-site classes are being suspended.

E Ink announced a new color e-paper technology, which they call Print-Color E Ink, which is intended for the smart education and retail markets. It can also be used in e-readers or e-notebooks, though.

E Ink did not provide much details, but says that Print-Color E Ink panels are produced on plastic substrates and are utilizing a different technology than E Ink Advanced-Color ePaper (AcEP) - which seems to be of higher quality and as such targets different applications. The company is working with partners to "launch color electronic paper application products as soon as possible".

Molded fiber packaging specialist RyPax Wing Fat announced that it will showcase sustainable packaging prototypes for pharmaceutical applications. These smart packaging solutions adopt small E Ink displays.

Smart packaging helps consumers to authenticate products, while giving easier access to product information. RyPax will roll out these new e-paper packaging solutions to their pharmaceutical and electronics clients as soon as next quarter.

E Ink Holdings announced that it developed e-paper displays driven by OTFT backplanes - aimed for wearable and smart clothing applications. EIH is developing the OFTF backplanes in collaboration with AU Optronics.

EIH says that OTFT can reduce production costs as it can be produced at low temperatures and perhaps even using printing technologies. OTFT can also enable highly flexible displays. EIH will demonstrate OTFT EPD displays late this week at Touch Taiwan 2019.

E Ink Holdings Inc has lowered its 2019 revenue forecast, saying that revenues are expected to be 10% lower than in 2018 EIH says that the US-China trade ware has lowered demand for e-readers and e-notebooks in the US.

E-readers and e-notebooks amount to around 70% of EIH's revenues. The company is still optimistic about the electronic shelf label (ELS) market, and its shipments to that market are expected to grow 20-30% from 2018.

In 2017 HP announced its IonTouch system which enables cheap and easy "paperless" printing on small E Ink Cards. Fast forward to 2019, and now E Ink announced a new technology called JustPrintIt, which is based (and licensed) on HP's IoNTouch.

The JustPrintIt system is a "rewritable, digital, electronics-free display medium" that E Ink hopes to get adopted in smart office, transportation, retail, healthcare and IoT applications. Possible usage cases include ID badges, gift cards, loyalty cards, packaging, healthcare and public transportation cards.

E Ink announced that Landmark Hospitals of Florida has launched e-paper based patient and room information displays.

The patient information display (PID) and the room information display (RID) was developed by DCI, a Foxconn Health Technology Business Group Company. The E Ink displays will replace handwritten whiteboards with low-power and highly-readable displays that pull essential information from the Electronic Health Record (EHR) to clinical staff and patients areas, ensuring accurate communication and information exchange.

As Expected, E Ink Holdings (EIH) returned to profitability in Q2 2019 thanks to strong demand for e-paper displays for electronic shelf labels, e-readers and e-notebooks. Revenues in June totaled $45.67 million - up 19% from May but down 16.7% from June 2018.

EIH expects that the strong sales will continue in Q3 (fueled by peak-season demand).