E Ink Holdings Inc (元太科技), which supplies e-paper displays for Amazon.com Inc’s Kindle e-reader series, yesterday said it may see losses this quarter and the next one because of weak seasonal demand.
Revenue is expected to fall by between 5 percent and 10 percent from last quarter’s NT$5.86 billion (US$192.4 million), chief financial executive Eddie Chen (陳彥松) told an investors’ conference.
With revenue at such a level, “there is a strong likelihood that E Ink will drift into the red during the first half of the year,” Chen said, citing weak seasonal demand for ebooks.
E Ink posted nearly double quarterly net profit for the last quarter. Net income expanded to NT$1.01 billion last quarter, primarily from royalties income, compared with NT$511 million in the third quarter last year.
E Ink booked NT$820 million in royalties income last quarter. Operating income reached NT$228 million, reversing an operating loss of NT$228 million for the prior quarter.
IMPROVEMENT
The company turned a net profit for last year of NT$29 million — a significant improvement from net losses of NT$749 million in 2012 — thanks to an income tax refund for minority interest, its annual report showed.
“The company is still undergoing a series of corporate restructurings aimed at improving its financial health, and there is a long way to go,” Chen said.
He said E Ink’s South Korean subsidiary, Hydis Technologies Co’s, utilization rate dropped to less than 30 percent last year because of weakening demand for ebook devices.
E Ink plans to broaden its product portfolio this year by including more displays for smartphones, Chen said.
The company began shipping e-paper products to Russian smartphone vendor Yota Devices last quarter, and it will start mass producing electronic price labels or luggage tags this year to further diversify its product mix and increase sales, he said.
E-PAPER DISPLAY
E-paper display was the biggest revenue source for E Ink last year, accounting for more than 80 percent of its revenue of NT$18.9 billion.
Displays only made up 15 percent to 20 percent of revenue.
“E Ink needs to strengthen its non-e-book businesses in order to better its financial performance,” Taipei-based Horizon Securities analyst Stanley Hsu (許家銘) said by telephone.
Hsu said the global ebook device market will no longer be able to achieve high shipment growth due to the rise of tablets, since consumers are able to read ebooks offered by Amazon or Kobo on their tablets.
Citing studies by Horizon Securities, Hsu said shipments of e-book devices reached a peak of 20 million units in 2012 and then fell to 16 million units last year.
As market demand for smartphone remains robust, E Ink should address the underdeveloped e-paper smartphone market “because that is a new niche market,” Hsu said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six