Prime View International Co Ltd (元太科技), the world’s biggest e-paper display module maker, yesterday signed an agreement with LG Display Co of South Korea to jointly boost the fledgling e-paper display business and to stave off increasing competition from new players.
The tie-up between the two companies will be comprehensive, ranging from capital investments, e-paper display purchases and cross-licensing that would also involve Prime View’s flat-panel affiliate Hydis Technologies Co.
“We anticipate the collaboration will enlarge [the e-paper display module] market scope and will [help us] secure our leading position,” Prime View chairman Scott Liu (劉思誠) told a media briefing.
Last week, Prime View completed the acquisition of E Ink Corp. E Ink outpaces rivals such as SiPix Technology Inc (達意科技) in producing e-paper displays and supplies those used in Amazon’s electronic reader series Kindle.
LG Display has signed a separate purchase contract with E Ink to secure supply of e-paper displays, a joint statement said.
Earlier this month, LG Display invested US$10 million in Prime View’s global depositary receipts. Translating GDR into common shares, LG Display owns about a 0.5 percent stake in Prime View.
The partnership would help the company seize a 20 percent share of the e-paper display module market next year, compared with the 15 percent it controls this year, LG Display chief executive Young Soo-kwon said in Taipei.
The companies would also pool production capacity on certain e-paper and high-end display panels to cope with growing market demand and to achieve higher cost efficiency, the statement said.
Market researcher DisplaySearch forecast that the e-paper display market would grow at a 64 percent compound annual growth rate to 1.8 billion units in 2018, from 22 million units this year.
“The cooperation with LG Display may help Prime View solve insufficient [glass] capacity [problems] and probably help it overcome e-paper technological bottlenecks, such as making colored or flexible displays,” Yuanta Securities Co (元大證券) flat-panel analyst Dale Gai (蓋欣山) said.
With growing contribution from the high-margin e-paper display business, Prime View is expected to earn NT$3.33 billion (US$103 million), or NT$4 per share, next year, compared with losses of NT$833 million this year, Gai said.
E-paper display may make up a bulky 70 percent of Prime View’s revenues next year, Gai said. Currently, the share is about 60 percent, the company said.
Based on the agreement signed yesterday, LG Display will also subscribe for US$30.5 million in convertible bonds issued by Hydis Technologies.
Commenting on the display panel industry, Kwon said TV demand was better than expected and notebook computer demand from corporations was also on the rise, given that the global economy is picking up. That will make next year a better period for the industry, Kwon said.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: The chipmaker last month raised its capital spending by 28 percent for this year to NT$32 billion from a previous estimate of NT$25 billion Contract chipmaker Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電子) yesterday launched a new 12-inch fab, tapping into advanced chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging technology to support rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) devices. Powerchip is to offer interposers, one of three parts in CoWoS packaging technology, with shipments scheduled for the second half of this year, Powerchip chairman Frank Huang (黃崇仁) told reporters on the sidelines of a fab inauguration ceremony in the Tongluo Science Park (銅鑼科學園區) in Miaoli County yesterday. “We are working with customers to supply CoWoS-related business, utilizing part of this new fab’s capacity,” Huang said, adding that Powerchip intended to bridge
Microsoft Corp yesterday said that it would create Thailand’s first data center region to boost cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, promising AI training to more than 100,000 people to develop tech. Bangkok is a key economic player in Southeast Asia, but it has lagged behind Indonesia and Singapore when it comes to the tech industry. Thailand has an “incredible opportunity to build a digital-first, AI-powered future,” Microsoft chairman and chief executive officer Satya Nadella said at an event in Bangkok. Data center regions are physical locations that store computing infrastructure, allowing secure and reliable access to cloud platforms. The global embrace of AI
Qualcomm Inc, the world’s biggest seller of smartphone processors, gave an upbeat forecast for sales and profit in the current period, suggesting demand for handsets is increasing after a two-year slump. Revenue in the three months ended in June will be US$8.8 billion to US$9.6 billion, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Excluding certain items, earnings will be US$2.15 to US$2.35 a share. Analysts had projected sales of US$9.08 billion and earnings of US$2.16 a share. The outlook signals that the smartphone market has begun to bounce back, tracking with Qualcomm’s forecast that demand would gradually recover this year. The San