E Ink Holdings - Page 8

E Ink Holdings announced that its net profit increased 25.48% to $84.6 million in 2018 as demand for high-margin electronic shelf labels (ESL) more than compenstated the lower demand for e-reader displays

E Ink Holdings is confident that its business will continue to be strong in 2019. Demand for e-readers will remain weak in H1 2019, which will result in a single-digit drop in total revenues.

E Ink Holdings has teamed up with Advantech, Avalue Technology, Cypress Technology and software developer iMedtac to develop e-paper based displays for the medical market.

The partners will develop many application solutions, including medical care information boards, clinic reception displays, drip recording cards, smart drug labelling systems, clinic bed cards and mobile data recording boards. They will use a wide range of e-paper displays, including 2.9-, 5.65-, 13.3- and 42-inch panels.

E Ink Holdings introduced a new digital paper film, branded as JustWrite, which aims to bring writing functionality "on every surface".

JustWrite combines an E Ink display with touch functionality - without the use of a TFT backplane. EIH says that JustWrite features almost no latency in pen writing - and so it closely resembles writing on paper, natural surfaces or marker boards. The film is produced via a roll to roll process and requires only a writing stylus and simple electronics to enable functionality.E Ink can produce JustWrite films up to 3-feet in width.

E Ink Holding's president Johnson Lee says that EIH expects to enjoy strong sales in Q4 2018 - and the growth momentum will continue in 2019. The increased sales will be driven by strong demand for electronic shelf label (ESL) products.

EIH's current production capacity is fully booked - and even though the company is increasing its capacity at its Linkou Taiwan plant, this will not be enough to meet the surging demand. EIH is now considering converting some of its production capacity at its US plant to produce ESL displays (the fab is currently exclusively making e-reader displays).

Visionect posted an interesting interview with Russ Wilcox - the founder former CEO of E Ink. Russ discusses the early days at E Ink, the sell to PVI, the signage market and more.

Russ believes that the new color e-paper displays will "open up a large market for advertising". Read the full interview here!

E Ink Holdings announced a new collaboration with Fujitsu Semiconductor to co-develop a reference design board for battery-less e-paper labels. The new board will be based on Fujitsu's UHF FRAM RFID LSI. Toppan Printing will also be a partner in this project.

The design board will use energy-harvesting technologies that will enable it to connect over distances of up to 20 cm without a power source. The companies target applications such as badges, ID cards, electronic shelf labels and logistics tags.

E Ink Holdings estimates that its 2018 revenues will be little changed from its 2017 revenues (of about $495 million) as growth in ESL and e-notebook revenues will offset the decline in e-reader demand.

E Ink says that its e-reader customers are "adjusting their product portfolios to changing demand" in 2018 - which reduces demand for new devices and thus demand for its e-reader E Ink displays. Next year, however, e-reader market growth is expected to resume.

E Ink Holdings says it plans to start producing its next-generation color e-Paper (Advanced Color ePaper, or ACeP) display panels early in 2019. The first ACeP displays will be 13" in size.

E Ink first-generation Triton color e-Paper displays never really reached commercialization as the performance was not good enough. The company currently produces 3-color displays (Spectra displays), but the ACeP will hopefully be the first commercial full color E Ink displays.

E Ink Holdings' president, Johnson Lee, says that demand for electronic shelf labels (ESL) displays is high - and in 2018 the company expects ESL displays to surpass e-reader displays in terms of area shipments.

This is very good news for EIH as the e-reader market has stagnated for years - and it is rather surprising for many as we have all been used to consider e-readers to be the main market for e-paper displays.

E Ink Holdings posted an operating loss of $8.8 million USD in Q1 2018, as it faces a slowdown in e-reader sales and as it increased its operating expenses by 14.3% (this includes the $30 million investment in SES-imageotag). E Ink says that this loss was in line with its expecations, as it knows e-reader vendors are now updating their models and shifting to larger screen sizes (larger than the current 6-inch models).

E Ink says it expects its results to improve in the current quarter, and it believes its 2018 results will be better than its 2017 results.