E-paper display supplier E Ink Holdings Inc (元太科技) yesterday gave a positive outlook for the second half of the year as its customers prepare to launch new e-reader and e-notebook models that should fuel growth.
After exiting the lower-margin LCD industry last quarter, the company said it is now concentrating on expanding uses for e-paper displays to diverse applications such as e-notebooks, smart cards and multicolored electronic shelf labels for retailers and logistics operators.
“We see year-on-year growth in the e-reader business in the second half during the peak season, primarily driven by rising demand from China and emerging markets,” Frank Ko (柯富仁) told an teleconference in Taipei.
E Ink is a long-time e-paper display supplier for e-readers sold by Amazon.com Inc and Rakuten Kobo Inc.
There are growth opportunities in the company’s new product lines, such as e-notebooks, Ko said.
“We have been actively developing e-notebooks over the past one to two years together with our key customer,” Ko said
E-ink has teamed up with Sony Corp in a joint venture to develop a laptop product integrating its technology.
“This year is an important year for us to pitch this product to the market,” Ko said. “We are seeing replacement demand from the healthcare sector to the financing and education sectors,” Ko said.
This year as a whole, e-readers and e-notebooks are expected to contribute more than 70 percent to E Ink’s overall revenue, he said.
E Ink has also made progress in promoting its e-paper displays for ‘smart’ credit cards, point-collection cards and public transportation cards, Ko said.
France’s major banks and Korea Telecom Corp are to equip their credit cards or debit cards with e-paper displays to enhance security, he said.
While those new applications may take some time to make significant revenue contribution, Ko said the company is expecting growth in its major electronic shelf labels in the second half of the year.
Chinese retailers, such as a new supermarket funded by Alibaba Group Holding Inc (阿里巴巴), are joining their peers in the US and Europe in adopting electronics shelf labels, Ko said.
Electronic shelf labels would make up between 15 percent and 20 percent of E Ink’s revenue this year, making them the firm’s second-biggest source of revenue, he said.
Given the rising contribution from higher-margin products, Ko said “gross margin in the second half will remain above average for the company.”
Last quarter, gross margin climbed to 40.1 percent, the best result since 2002, company data showed.
E Ink’s operating income last quarter soared 71 percent to NT$293 million (US$14.5 million), from NT$171 million in the same period last year.
Royalty income, an important contributor to the company’s bottom line, is expected to remain stable this year, Ko said.
E Ink last year booked NT$2.25 billion in royalty income. It made NT$870 million from royalties in the second quarter of this year.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors
RSS