E Ink Holdings - Page 10

Digitimes reports that E Ink Holdings is ramping up its electronic shelf label display (ESL) production as the company expects double-digit growth in 2017. EIH recently began to ship smart label displays to Alibaba Group and JD.com subsidiaries.

E Ink shipped around 30-40 million ELSs in 2016, which is 50% of the total ESL market. Digitimes says that the company hopes to become an ESL supplier to Walmart and Amazon.

In 2015 E Ink announced its Prism technology, which uses flexible E Ink materials to create large-area animated walls or furniture that can respond to input. Today E Ink announced it is adding seven new colors, which can be integrate together to create beautiful new Prism designs.

The new colors are Voyage (dark blue), Daydream (cyan), Blush (red), Sprout (green), Zest (yellow), Harvest (brown) and Waltz (black). E Ink sees applications for Prism in the commercial, hospitality, transportation, healthcare, retail and education markets.

HP Developed a new system, called IonTouch, which enables cheap and easy "paperless" printing. The basic idea is that IonTouch can be used to "print" small displays for applications such as calling cards, QR Codes, badges and more.

Those cards are based on E Ink, and so does not require any power while the image stays - and of course the image can be changed with the "printing" equipment. Each display is a 2.5" 300x300 monochrome (16 grayscales) E Ink panel. HP is aiming for a low-cost solution and each display will cost less than $2 to make.

E Ink and Sony Semiconductor Solutions announced a joint venture with an aim to develop, manufacture and market products that use e-paper displays. Sony and E Ink Holdings will have about 70% of the shares in the new JV, while the rest will be owned by venture capital companies.

Sony has been using E Ink displays since 2004, first with its e-reader devices (it is still offering its large 13.3" flexible E Ink based reader, but the smaller ones are no longer in production) and later with wearables and other unique products.

E Ink Holdings reported its financial results for 2016, with the first operating profit in five years. The company was still profitable, due to royalty earnings, but now its operations are profitable too - in 2016 operating income was NT$61 million ($2 million USD).

The company's chairman says that the improvement stems from a better product mix, enhanced productivity - and the company's new asset-light policy and divestment from unprofitable business. E Ink quite the LCD market to focus on its e-paper technologies. New sales drivers are e-paper displays, electronic shelf labels and electronic signages. Demand from e-reader remains stable and E Ink actually expects annual growth in that market.

In March 2016 Dai Nippon Printing (DNP) announced a strategic partnership with E Ink to co-develop and co-market products that use E Ink displays - mainly targeting the retail market and also security cards and smartcards.

E Ink Holdings now says that the two companies will launch a point-of-purchase (POP) interactive advertising display next month. The POP solution will be based on E Ink's Prism color-variable e-paper technology. The system can "sense consumers' shopping behavior" and display responsive colors and patterns "in line with the sensed behavior". The idea is that such a display will make products more visible and attractive to consumers.

E Ink launched its largest ePaper module yet, a 42" 2160x2880 (85 DPI) panel. E Ink is demonstrating this panel at CES 2017, and it is also the same panel used by QuirkLogic's Quilla system unveiled a couple of days ago.

E Ink did not yet disclose the availability of this new module, hopefully we will hear more soon.

E Ink Holdings signed a strategic agreement with Chinese industrial LCD maker Dalian DKE LCD to co-promote e-Paper applications in China. E Ink Holdings signed the agreement via its China-based e-Paper subsidiary Transcend Optronics.

As part of the agreement, E Ink's technology will be used by DKE to develop price-competitive segmented e-paper display solutions for IoT applications. DKE will produce the displays using its STN (super-twisted nematic)-TFT manufacturing equipment.

E Ink Holdings reported its financial results for Q3 2016. Net income was NT$509 million ($US 16 million), a 35% drop from Q2 2016. This drop in earnings was mostly due to lower patent royalty income from its LCD business.

E Ink is exiting the LCD market, and the company expects that all revenues in 2017 will come from e-paper displays. The company's main growth driver in the next few years will be electronic shelf labels.

Japan Display (JDI) announced that it has entered into a long-term strategic alliance with E Ink Holdings for e-paper business. JDI aims to integrate E Ink e-paper displays into its product offering for digital signage and mobile phone customers.

JDI aims to develop new E Ink products based on its innovative LTPS and Pixel Eyes in-cell touch technologies. JDI sees new application such as dynamic computer keyboards, display cards, automotive displays, education, IoT and more.