E Ink Holdings Inc (元太科技), the world’s largest e-paper display supplier, yesterday reported a 25 percent annual decline in net profit for last quarter as a bumpy transition to better color displays for electronic shelf labels (ESLs) led to a supply chain glut.
Module customers were still grappling with excessive inventory last month, leading to a decline in the company’s Internet of Things (IoT) business, which primarily produces ESL e-paper displays, E Ink said.
Net profit sank to NT$1.32 billion (US$40.9 million) during the three months to March, from NT$1.76 billion over the same period last year. Earnings per share dropped to NT$1.16 from NT$1.54.
Photo: Chen Mei-ying, Taipei Times
Operating profit plunged 54 percent annually to NT$833 million from NT$1.81 billion, but non-operating income grew 95 percent to NT$879 million, including foreign exchange gains of NT$497 million, helping to bolster the firm’s bottom line, E Ink said.
“Looking forward, the IoT business will return to the normal growth path in the third quarter and that growth will extend into the fourth quarter,” E Ink chairman Johnson Lee (李政昊) told investors at a quarterly conference yesterday, adding that the firm’s downstream partner, Walmart Inc, plans to implement its ESL installment project at the end of this year, ahead of schedule.
Regarding e-paper displays for e-readers, growth momentum is robust and better than expected, indicating a smooth switch to color e-readers from black and white, Lee said.
E Ink has noticed that supply of new colored e-paper displays made on Kaleido 3 technology is constrained, he said.
The company retains its positive outlook for this year, expecting revenue to grow every quarter going forward, he said.
“The most important thing is that we have at least ridden through the trough period,” Lee said. “The second quarter is better than the first quarter, and we believe the third quarter will be better than the second.”
E Ink said that it has expanded capacity to produce large e-paper displays for digital signage used in retail stores or for outdoor advertising, and expects to ramp up production by the end of this year.
The firm said it has budgeted NT$5 billion to NT$6 billion of capital expenditure for this year.
TOP PERFORMER: The computer and optical products sector’s annual increase in output of 31.84 percent was the largest among Taiwan’s six major industries The industrial production index last month increased 16.06 percent year-on-year, rising for a third consecutive month as local manufacturing continued to boom, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Industrial production measures the change in the value of output produced by the local manufacturing, mining and utilities sectors. Last month’s growth, the largest annual expansion in 34 months, came as increases in manufacturing output, water supply, and electricity and gas production more than offset a retreat in mining output, the ministry said in a report. Manufacturing output, which accounted for 95.39 percent of the industrial production index, also rose for a third consecutive
Two global credit ratings firms lowered their forecasts for China’s property market, as an accelerating slump in home prices hampers the country’s efforts to rescue the sector. S&P Global Ratings now expects residential sales to drop 15 percent this year, more than the 5 percent decline it projected earlier. That would put sales below 10 trillion yuan (US$1.4 trillion), about half the peak in 2021, the ratings company said on Thursday. Fitch Ratings on Wednesday cut its annual sales estimate to a decrease of 15 to 20 percent, worse than an earlier estimate of a 5 to 10 percent drop. The ratings firms’
DIVERSIFYING: Following customers’ demand to improve supply chain resilience, ASE is looking for sites in the US, Japan and Mexico, a company executive said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it plans to launch a new high-end chip testing fab in the US next month to better serve its key customers based in North America, particularly California-based artificial intelligence (AI) customers. The new US testing facility would be operated by the firm’s subsidiary ISE Labs Inc, it said. ASE’s major customers, and high-ranking US officials and representatives from American Institute in Taiwan are to attend the fab’s opening ceremony on July 12, it said. ISE Labs last year acquired a 5,942m2 facility in San
A US banking giant fired more than a dozen employees for “simulating keyboard activity,” highlighting a battle within productivity-obsessed corporate America to tame a culture of faking work with gizmos such as mouse jigglers. The sackings by Wells Fargo & Co come as employers use sophisticated tools — popularly called “tattleware” or “bossware” — on company-issued devices to monitor productivity in the age of hybrid work that took off after the COVID-19 pandemic. Some workers seek to outsmart them with tools such as mouse movers — which simulate cursor movement, preventing their devices from going into sleep mode and making them appear