E-readers

Kobo launched two e-Readers, both of which use E Ink's latest Kaleido 3 color displays. First up is the Kobo Libra Colour, with its 7" color 1264x1680 E Ink Kaleido 3 touchscreen (300 PPI in monochrome, 150 PPI in color). The Libra Colour offers a Dual-Core 2 Ghz chipset, Kobo Stylus 2 support ($69.99 extra), physical page turn buttons and IPX8 waterproofing. The Kobo Libra Color will ship by the end of April 2024, for $219.99.

The Kobo Clara Colour eReader offers a 6" E Ink 1448 x 1072 Kaleido 3 display (300 PPI in monochrome, 150 PPI in color), a Dual-Core 2.0 Ghz chipset and IPX8 waterproofing. The Kobo Clara Colour eReaderw will ship by end of April 2024 for $149.99.

E Ink announced that it will strengthen its partnership with MediaTek to jointly develop system chips for e-reader devices. The two companies will also offer "new business prospects" for Taiwanese manufacturers in the global e-reader market.

MeditaTek has a product line of tablet chipsets, which includes chips for e-readers. The company says that those chips, equipped with high-performance CPU processors and integrated Wi-Fi, are developed using advanced manufacturing processes to create highly efficient chips. These chips support a range of E Ink display technologies from E Ink, including E Ink Carta, E Ink Kaleido, and E Ink Gallery.

In April 2022, E Ink announced its latest color ePaper display, the Gallery 3, targeting applications in eReaders and Notes devices. The Gallery 3 is based on E Ink's ACeP (Advanced Color ePaper) platform, where a full-color gamut is achieved through a four particle ink system: cyan, magenta, yellow and white. The displays offer fast refresh rates (350 ms for black and white, 500-1500 ms for color refresh), a substantial improvement over the first generation E Ink Gallery.

E Ink today announced that Gallery 3 has moved into mass production, with customer products from Bigme, BOOX, iFlyTek, iReader, PocketBook, Readmoo, and AOC coming down the pipeline in 2023 and beyond.

E Ink Holdings says that it expects its revenue to increase slightly in this quarter as demand for electronic shelf labels is on the rise, but it raises concerns about a recession in the near future which could decrease demand for e-readers and e-notebooks.

EIH is targeting to enter the US ESL market via partners next year, and it estimates that it the market in the US is 10 times bigger compared to the EU market. The company is currently not changing its capital expenditure plans for 2022 and 2023, and it plans to increase production in its production lines in Hschincu, Taiwan (and build new lines) in 2022-2025. It has decided to delay its planned new line in Guanyin. 

E Ink Holdings announced a partnership with Sharp Display Technology Corporation (SDTC) to adopt SDTC’s indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO*2) backplanes for ePaper modules using in eReader and eNote products.

E Ink and Sharp have been working together for two years to bring oxide TFTs for ePaper displays into the market. The two companies will demonstrate the first next-gen IGZO ePaper displays at CEATEC 2022 (October 18) - a 8" 300 PPI display that offers a refresh time of 0.35 seconds (monochrome) / 0.5-1.5 seconds (color).

Remarkable, the company behind the reMarkable 10.3" 1872 x 1404 E Ink tablet says that it has sold over 1 million devices, generating over $300 million in revenue in 2021 (with an operating profit of $31 million).

reMarkable says it closed a new financing round, with a valuation of $1 billion. The company did not disclose more about the funding round - beyond saying that they have sold a minority stake for several international investors.

Amazon decided to pull out of the Chinese e-reader market. The company will stop offering Kindle devices in China by the end of June 2023, and will also stop operating its eBook stores in China.

Customers in China will be able to download the Kindle app until June 2024, and of the devices themselves will continue to operate with the books stored on them.

E Ink announced its latest color ePaper display, the Gallery 3, targeting applications in eReaders and Notes devices.

The Gallery 3 is based on E Ink's ACeP (Advanced Color ePaper) platform, where a full-color gamut is achieved through a four particle ink system: cyan, magenta, yellow and white, which allows a full color gamut at each pixel. Gallery 3 displays offers a faster refresh rate (350 ms for black and white, 500-1500 ms for color refresh), a substantial improvement over the first generation E Ink Gallery (which offers a black and white update in 2 seconds, and full-color in up to 10 seconds).

E Ink Holdings has launched an on-cell touch ePaper module, which it says is the world's first. EIH's on-cell touch technology can be applied to the company's E Ink Carta monochrome displays and its Kaleido Plus color displays.

Most e-readers today add a touch layer onto the E Ink display. EIH says that the new technology will increase the contrast ratio by 30% compared to the standard added touch layer solution. For the Kaleido Plus displays, the on-cell will increase color contrast ratio by 40% and the color saturation by 15%. As an added bonus, the on-cell touch solution will be more cost effective and could help reduce eReader prices.

E Ink Holdings says it plans to double its capital expenditure this year (to $56.5 million) in order to expand its capacity and meet its customer demand. EIH is now building four new production lines in Taiwan.

EIH says its capacity is now fully booked for the year, and it is quite sure it will be able to find customers for its new capacity as demand is strong. The company's revenues in the first two months of the year rose by 77% compared to last year. The main growth driver seems to electronic shelf label displays, but EIH also sees higher sales for e-readers and e-notebooks.