Financial - Page 9

E Ink Holdings reported that their revenues for the first half of 2011 were NT$17.01 billion (about $600 million) - up 67% compared to last year. E Ink says that this growth is even more impressive when you consider that the second quarter is traditionally the low season for the electronics industry.

CopyTele announced it has signed two license agreements with AUO to produce and market their e-paper and nano-display (LVND) technologies. AUO's e-paper license is exclusive and they can also sublicense the technology to third parties. The nano-display patents license is non exclusive.

AUO will pay $10 million to CopyTele for those license. There are also royalty payments by AUO. CopyTele's e-paper technology is electrophoretic based and utilizes specially coated particles in combination with a unique type of pixel structure to create an image.

Portugal's Ynvisible won a grant from the Portuguese National Strategic Reference Framework (QREN) to help develop electrochromic displays. The total project is valued at over €1 million. Ynvisible's electrochromic ink technology is aimed towards packaging, advertising, print media, signage and smart wearables. Initial products will include point-of-sale posters and advertising.

E Ink Holdings reported a net profit of NT$1.67 billion ($57.7 million) on revenues of NT$10.09 billion ($347 million) for the Q1 2011. The earnings-per-share more than doubled over last year (but were lower than the earnings in the previous quarter).

E-Paper displays (EPD) products contributed 60-70% of the total revenues. The company says that the market for EPD is expected to continue growing - in fact the company predicts that in 2011 the market will increase 2-3 fold over 2011.

E Ink announced their 4Q 2010 financial results. Sales hit a record of NT$9.8 billion (around $330 million) for the quarter and NT$25.2 billion (around $860 million) for the whole of 2010.

“In 2010 we achieved several key milestones,” said Dr. Scott Liu, Chairman, E Ink Holdings, Inc. “We tripled the number of ePaper displays as shipped in 2009 for the eReader market alone, launched two new ePaper display platforms, E Ink Pearl™ and E Ink Triton™ and we have had strong demand from the Tablet PC market for our FFS technology-based LCD products.”

Back in November 2010 we reported that Plastic Logic received a 'major' investment from Russia's RUSNANO. Today we learned that this is major indeed - the total investment will be $700 million (!) - which will be used to build a mass-production factory for thin, light and flexible plastic-based e-paper displays. Those displays will be used in Plastic Logic’s first commercial consumer electronics product, a next-generation electronic reader for business that is currently under development. This isn't the Que e-reader which was canceled in 2010.

The new factory will be built in Zelenograd, Russia, and is scheduled to begin production in 2013/2014 - and will be able to produce hundreds of thousands displays monthly. This will be Plastic Logic's second factory (the first one was opened in 2008 in Dresden, Germany). Russia hopes that this move will establish a commercial plastic electronics industry.

Update: This is now official, Samsung issued a press release. We still do not know the financial details...

There are reports that Samsung has acquired Liquavista. It's not official, and we do not know the financial details, but it seems that Samsung is already listed as Liquavista's corporate parent at the Netherlands' chamber of commerce.

LiquaVista raised $9.5 million in early 2010, so this doesn't seem to be an "emergency sale" - and is probably good news for the company and the technology. We also know that Samsung stopped making E Ink panels in August 2010 - so perhaps they were already considering the move to Liquavista's electrowetting displays. Here's an interview we conducted with Liquavista's CTO back in March 2010.

Qualcomm's new Mirasol plant was rumored for a long time, and now it's official: Qualcomm will build a new Mirasol plant in Taiwan in a $1 billion investment. The new plant will make small and medium sized Mirasol displays.

Update: The investment will total $700 million (!), and the new plant will go online in 2013/2014.

Russia's RUSNANO (Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies) announced a 'major' investment in Plastic Logic. Plastic Logic will create their second volume production facility (for next-generation plastic displays) in Russia. Those displays are based on E Ink, and are thin, lightweight and flexible.

Interestingly, Plastic Logic says that those displays will be used in Plastic Logic's first consumer electronics product, a next-generation electronic reader for business that is currently under development. The Que E-reader was canceled back in August, so it's good to know they are working on a new reader.

E Ink holdings reported net profit of $22.2 million in the third quarter of 2010 - a company record. Revenues were $171 million, the same as the second quarter. The company's margin are down - because e-paper panel prices have dropped recently.

According to E Ink, Amazon expects record e-reader shipments in the fourth quarter, and E Ink is expanding its capacity to meet clients' demand.