E Ink Holdings Inc (元太科技), the world’s sole supplier of e-paper displays, expects revenue to climb to a four-year high this year as the COVID-19 pandemic helps fuel demand for e-readers and electronic shelf labels during the year-end shopping season.
The Hsinchu-based company said that retailers are accelerating adoption of electronic shelf labels to avoid virus transmission routes as well as to enhance delivery efficiency, as COVID-19 infections remain severe in the US and Europe.
Consumers are buying e-readers, tablet computers and laptops for remote learning or entertainment, instead of other items, as they are confined at home amid the pandemic, E Ink said.
Photo courtesy of E Ink Holdings Inc
The company is to introduce its new colored e-paper displays used in e-readers in the final quarter of this year.
Demand for its new color e-paper displays, dubbed Kaleido, has also improved and the firm is boosting capacity 10-fold, it said.
“This year will be the best year in terms of revenue after the company transformed itself into a pure e-paper display supplier in 2016,” E Ink chairman Johnson Lee (李政昊) told reporters on the sidelines of a news conference in New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋).
“Our order visibility is improving. We are seeing quite good momentum carrying into the first quarter of next year,” Lee said. “There will be year-on-year growth in revenue during the first quarter.”
“Customers are adding new orders constantly,” he said.
To meet customers’ rapidly growing demand for electronic shelf displays, E Ink is also expanding capacities in the US and in Hsinchu.
E Ink’s revenue grew 9.2 percent year-on-year to NT$11.1 billion (US$383.82 million) during the first nine months of this year, from NT$10.17 billion, after revenue last month rose to the highest level in 11 months at NT$1.53 billion.
E-readers and electronic shelf labels are the two major applications that drive demand for its e-paper displays, E Ink said.
E-paper displays for e-readers account for 60 percent of the firm’s revenue, it said.
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday said that its research institute has launched its first advanced artificial intelligence (AI) large language model (LLM) using traditional Chinese, with technology assistance from Nvidia Corp. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), said the LLM, FoxBrain, is expected to improve its data analysis capabilities for smart manufacturing, and electric vehicle and smart city development. An LLM is a type of AI trained on vast amounts of text data and uses deep learning techniques, particularly neural networks, to process and generate language. They are essential for building and improving AI-powered servers. Nvidia provided assistance
DOMESTIC SUPPLY: The probe comes as Donald Trump has called for the repeal of the US$52.7 billion CHIPS and Science Act, which the US Congress passed in 2022 The Office of the US Trade Representative is to hold a hearing tomorrow into older Chinese-made “legacy” semiconductors that could heap more US tariffs on chips from China that power everyday goods from cars to washing machines to telecoms equipment. The probe, which began during former US president Joe Biden’s tenure in December last year, aims to protect US and other semiconductor producers from China’s massive state-driven buildup of domestic chip supply. A 50 percent US tariff on Chinese semiconductors began on Jan. 1. Legacy chips use older manufacturing processes introduced more than a decade ago and are often far simpler than
STILL HOPEFUL: Delayed payment of NT$5.35 billion from an Indian server client sent its earnings plunging last year, but the firm expects a gradual pickup ahead Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), the world’s No. 5 PC vendor, yesterday reported an 87 percent slump in net profit for last year, dragged by a massive overdue payment from an Indian cloud service provider. The Indian customer has delayed payment totaling NT$5.35 billion (US$162.7 million), Asustek chief financial officer Nick Wu (吳長榮) told an online earnings conference. Asustek shipped servers to India between April and June last year. The customer told Asustek that it is launching multiple fundraising projects and expected to repay the debt in the short term, Wu said. The Indian customer accounted for less than 10 percent to Asustek’s
Gasoline and diesel prices this week are to decrease NT$0.5 and NT$1 per liter respectively as international crude prices continued to fall last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to decrease to NT$29.2, NT$30.7 and NT$32.7 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, while premium diesel is to cost NT$27.9 per liter at CPC stations and NT$27.7 at Formosa pumps, the companies said in separate statements. Global crude oil prices dropped last week after the eight OPEC+ members said they would
RSS