E Ink Holdings Inc (元太科技), the world’s biggest e-paper display supplier, is bracing for a headwind in the first half of this year due to dwindling demand and excessive stockpiles, it said yesterday.
E-paper displays for e-readers and new e-notebooks constituted 70 percent of E Ink’s overall revenue last year, totaling NT$15.2 billion (US$521.58 million).
“We expect the e-reader segment to weaken amid a slack season. Moreover, clients are transitioning to new models, which is digesting inventories,” company chairman Frank Ko (柯富仁) told an investor teleconference. “We are conservative about the outlook for shipment figures of e-paper displays for e-readers.”
Ko forecast that e-notebooks and electronic shelf labels would be the bright spots, with e-paper displays for those two categories showing annual growth in the first two quarters of this year as customers launch more products to take advantage of an uptake of those applications.
E-paper displays used in electronic shelf labels made up about 17 percent of the company’s total revenue last year, E Ink said.
Chinese retailers — such as a new supermarket funded by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) — last year joined their peers in the US and Europe in adopting electronic shelf labels, the company said.
E-paper displays for e-notebooks are to grow substantially this year given last year’s lower comparison base, it said, adding that the company began supplying e-paper displays for clients in the third quarter of last year and expects to increase shipments this year.
To cope with growing customer demand, E Ink said it plans to increase its capital spending this year, compared with NT$440 million last year.
Royalty income is to remain stable at an average of NT$2.4 billion this year, from NT$2.6 billion last year, it said.
Gross margin is to hold steady or drop slightly in the first six months of this year, compared with 39.5 percent for the same period last year, Ko said, adding that the decline could be attributed the a strong New Taiwan dollar, higher raw material costs and unfavorable product portfolios.
E Ink registered 42.1 percent gross margin for the final quarter of last year, bringing it to 42.88 percent in the second half of last year.
The company posted a loss of NT$50 million in the fourth quarter of last year, from a profit of NT$1.17 billion in the previous quarter and a profit of NT$891 million for the previous year.
E Ink said a foreign-exchange loss of NT$461 million and a loss of NT$516 million from bankrupted Hydis Technologies Co were behind the weak earnings.
E Ink no longer needs to book any losses from the South Korean subsidiary as it has settled lawsuits with the labor union at Hydis and has disposed of all the firm’s equipment and facilities, it said.
For the whole of last year, E Ink saw net profit increase 8.9 percent to NT$2.08 billion, from NT$1.91 billion the previous year. Earnings per share rose from NT$1.69 to NT$1.85 and foreign-exchange losses swelled to NT$671 million.
This time was supposed to be different. The memorychip sector, famous for its boom-and-bust cycles, had changed its ways. A combination of more disciplined management and new markets for its products — including 5G technology and cloud services — would ensure that companies delivered more predictable earnings. Yet, less than a year after memory companies made such pronouncements, the US$160 billion industry is suffering one of its worst routs ever. There is a glut of the chips sitting in warehouses, customers are cutting orders and product prices have plunged. “The chip industry thought that suppliers were going to have better control,” said
Enimmune Corp (安特羅生技) has obtained marketing approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its EnVAX-A71 vaccine for enterovirus 71 (EV-71), becoming the nation’s first enterovirus vaccine completely made in Taiwan, it said yesterday. After spending 13 years and NT$1.5 billion (US$49.77 million) on the research and development of the vaccine, Enimmune plans to start manufacturing and marketing it by the end of March, the company said in a statement, without disclosing customer order figures. “It is possible that the vaccine would not be included in a national vaccination program initially, and consumers would need to pay for it themselves,” parent
Hon Hai Technology Group (鴻海科技集團), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) internationally, yesterday said it was confident that its performance would improve in the second half of this year. Investment plans related to electric vehicles (EVs) in different parts of the world are expected to gradually start coming to fruition, Hon Hai chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told reporters after leading a new year’s prayer at the company’s headquarters in New Taipei City’s Tucheng District (土城). Major challenges stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war continue to affect the global economy. However, Liu said that he expects a turnaround in
‘BLUE OCEAN HIGHWAY’: The private cost of dredging is the main obstacle to having potentially thousands of new marine tourists make port calls, a marina operator said A company executive is betting big on marina development in Taiwan, as the government aims to boost the number of dedicated recreational yacht berths to 1,600 from 1,138 by 2025. Taiwan could make its dream of having thousands of sailboats and yachts make port calls in the country a reality by speeding up the construction of new marina berths, ARGO Yacht Club (亞果遊艇會) president Ho Yu-lin (侯佑霖) said. ARGO operates three marinas, in Kaohsiung, Penghu County and Tainan’s Anping District (安平). The 12-hectare Tainan Anping Yacht City is a members-only yacht club providing an array of amenities including restaurants and a hotel resort