Market updates - Page 2

E Ink Holdings posted their financial results for 2011 - with $220 million in net profit, up 59% compared to 2010. Gross margin in 4Q dropped compared to last quarter as the company saw a rise in FFS panel shipments (mostly to the Kindle fire probably) - which carry a lower margin compared to EPD products.

Flexible E Ink (LG Display)

EIH's Chairman, Scott Lu said that the company isn't ramping up its Triton color E Ink product (this is probably in response to the color Kindle rumor). The company is working on a next-gen color E Ink display and it is expected by 4Q 2012. E Ink also reveals that it will release flexible plastic-based E-Ink displays in 3Q or 4Q of 2012.

E Ink Holdings published their January financial results, and the revenue was about $48 million - which is a 63% drop compared to last year (and 11% drop compared to December). Despite this the company is still expected to post revenues of over NT$40 billion in 2012 - a 5% increase over 2011.

Some say that this marks the "end of the e-reader" - with tablets clearly winning the race. Some analysts are suggesting that Amazon will sell less Kindle e-readers in 2012 then was expected, but more Kindle Fires. This is an interesting debate. Most people agree that a dedicated e-paper reader is far better as a reading device but tablets are obviously much more versatile.

E Ink Holdings says they expect e-paper shipments for e-readers to increase over 50% in 2H 2011. They now project total 2011 shipments of 25-30 million (up from 2030 million, the previous estimate).

Our sister-site OLED-Info launched a new book today - The OLED Handbook. This is a comprehensive guide to OLED technology, market and industry. There is a growing interest in OLEDs - from all over the world, and this guide can help introduce the subject quickly and throughly.

Reading this book, you'll learn all about:

• OLED technology and materials
• What kind of OLED displays are available today
• What is a Super AMOLED and a Clear Black display
• All about OLED lighting technology
• OLED lighting panels and lamps available today
• The future of OLED displays and lighting
• And lot's more!

DisplaySearch say that shipments of e-paper increased to 5 million units in 2009, up 417% on year from 950,000 units in 2008, mainly due to the popularity of e-book readers. The Amazon Kindle has 66% of the total e-paper market, which means that they sold 3.3 million units.

IntertechPira and +plasticElectronics have announced an upcoming webinar (18 of February) called "e-readers and e-paper: technology and applications" that will discuss the evolution of e-paper for the e-reader market. The webinar will be given by Ian French, a principal scientist at Prime View International (PVI).

The webinar will provide an overview of e-readers to date, technology advances in three key areas: flexibility, color and video and will also discuss future applications for e-paper displays.

PVI says that their e-paper production lines are fully booked, till the end of the December. The company has readied new production lines for the displays.

DisplaySearch forecasts that total e-paper display market will grow to 1.8 billion units and $9.6 billion in revenues in 2018, from 22 million units and $431 million in revenues in 2009, for a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 41% for revenues and 64% for units.

E-book displays currently account for the majority of e-paper revenues. Nearly all e-book devices currently in the market use E Ink's electrophoretic display technology, with a small number--such as Fujitsu's FLEPia--using cholesteric LCD (liquid crystal display) technology. Other electrophoretic display suppliers SiPix and Bridgestone have announced that they will also commercialize e-book displays.

There's a new report by the Cleantech Group that says that e-readers are green. In fact, according to the projected sales of e-readers in 2009 and 2012 could reduce co-2 emissions by 10.9 million tons.

Their analysis says that one year of use could offset the emissions made by manufacturing and distribution (and operation). Each following year of use could actually be preventing the release of 370 pounds of carbon dioxide per user (assuming individuals buy about 22.5 books a year).

The report mentions that using an e-paper based reader (currently almost all of these are E Ink based) is best - because of the low power consumption.

Digitimes reports that PVI expects its E Ink shipments to increase by as much as 100%-200% in the second half of 2009. PVI are also raising money now to finance the E Ink acquisition.