E Ink Holdings took part in Displayweek 2024, showing its latest ePaper displays and panels, and solutions:
As always, E Ink took a visible role at the event, sponsoring the I-Zone and with a large number of employees at the exhibition floor.
Earlier this month E Ink Holdings said that the first quarter of 2024 will be its lowest point in the year, and indeed now the company formally reported its earnings, saying that there was a 25% decline in profits (to about $40.9 million) in Q1, as its customers struggled with an excessive inventory which resulted in decline in orders.
E Ink says that this decline is due to the transition to color ESL solutions, and it expects its IoT business to return to normal growth by Q3 2024. Its e-Reader business segment is seeing robust growth, better than expected, signalling a smooth switch to color ePaper solutions. The company retains its positive outlook for this year, expecting revenue to grow every quarter going forward.
E Ink Holdings says business is recovering gradually from an inventory correction cycle. Demand for E Ink displays has risen, mainly due to the adoption of new color EPD displays for e-readers and electronic shelf labels (ESLs). The company believes that the first quarter of 2024 will be its lowest point in the year, and revenues will start rising in Q2 and onwards.
E Ink further says that many ESL customers are expected to increase orders in the third quarter of 2024, and a large retailer in North America has started replacing paper labels with ESLs. This could be Walmart as we published last year.
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.