E Ink Holdings Inc (元太科技), the world’s sole e-paper display supplier, yesterday said it expects revenue to grow by as much as a low double-digit percentage this year, citing robust demand for electronic shelf labels (ESLs) from retailers, but sluggish consumer demand for e-readers and e-notes that might diminish the company’s overall growth strength.
The Hsinchu-based company said it is bullish about the adoption of ESLs in the US and Europe as staff shortages and frequent price adjustments amid high inflation entice retailers to shift away from traditional shelf labels.
“We are optimistic about the ESL business. We are seeing a strong intention to install electronic shelf labels,” E Ink chairman Johnson Lee (李政昊) told a media event in Taipei yesterday.
Photo: CNA
Customers increasingly explore the usage of ESLs for signage in public spaces and for advertising on public transportation, Lee said, attributing the trend to e-paper displays becoming bigger and better at displaying colors.
E-paper displays used in ESLs have since the third quarter of last year been the firm’s biggest source of revenue.
However, the firm said it is concerned that further interest rate hikes by central banks could dent the growth of the world economy and dampen demand for e-readers.
E Ink expects revenue from e-readers to decline this year.
Some customers indicated that they might reschedule product launches and roll out new products when the world economy is in better shape, Lee said.
“Overall, we are cautiously optimistic about this year’s outlook. We still look at growth this year compared with last year, but the growth will not be as significant as what we did last year,” Lee said.
From a conservative point of view, revenue is expected to grow by a single-digit percentage this year, Lee said, adding that double-digit percentage growth is possible, depending on the macroeconomic situation, he said.
Last year, E Ink’s revenue expanded 26 percent year-over-year to NT$30.06 billion (US$975.7 million), the best performance in 11 years.
The company said its capacity expansion plans are on schedule, unaffected by macroeconomic developments.
To fuel future growth momentum, E Ink said it would this quarter or next build the fourth of six planned production lines in Taoyuan’s Guanyin District (觀音).
E Ink said it is planning to spend NT$5 billion to NT$6 billion on new facilities and manufacturing equipment this year.
E Ink’s net profits surged to a historical high of NT$9.91 billion last year, up from NT$1.84 billion in 2021. Earnings per share rose to NT$8.69 last year from NT$1.61 in 2021.
The firm’s board of directors has approved a cash dividend of NT$4.5 per common share, representing a 52 percent payout ratio. Last year, the company paid a cash dividend of NT$3.2 per common share.
UNCONVINCING: The US Congress questioned whether the company’s Chinese owners pose a national security risk and how the app might influence young users TikTok chief executive officer Shou Chew (周受資), confronted with an unforgiving, distrustful US Congress, tried to give answers in his testimony on Thursday that avoided offending either the US government or China. However, his evasiveness left Congress unsatisfied, with representatives hungrier than ever to punish TikTok for ties to its parent company ByteDance Ltd (字節跳動), based in Beijing. He did not bring his company any closer to a resolution. Politically, TikTok is in a tougher spot. Its executives had been discussing divesting from ByteDance to resolve US national security concerns, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. However, China this week said
Microsoft Corp has threatened to cut off access to its Internet search data, which it licenses to rival search engines, if they do not stop using it as the basis for their own artificial intelligence (AI) chat products, people familiar with the dispute have said. The software maker licenses the data in its Bing search index — a map of the Internet that can be quickly scanned in real time — to other companies that offer Web search, such as Apollo Global Management Inc’s Yahoo and DuckDuckGo. Last month, Microsoft integrated a cousin of ChatGPT, OpenAI’s AI-powered chat technology, into Bing. Rivals
Sanofi SA’s drug Dupixent succeeded in a late-stage trial for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), raising the odds that the blockbuster would be the first biologic medicine cleared to treat the lung disorder. Dupixent, which is already prescribed for asthma and some skin conditions, showed a 30 percent reduction in the rate at which patients’ COPD worsened compared with those who received a placebo during the stage-three Boreas trial, the company said in a statement yesterday. The positive data could herald a new era of cutting-edge treatments for the life-threatening respiratory affliction and provide another major boost in demand for the French
SEMICONDUCTOR EQUIPMENT: The international trade group said the sector would recover from a slump, with spending expected to rise 4.2 percent to US$24.9 billion Taiwan is to retain its position as the top spender on semiconductor front-end equipment and facilities next year, with spending expected to increase 4.2 percent year-on-year to US$24.9 billion, international trade group SEMI said yesterday. The spending forecast matches an expected recovery in global semiconductor equipment and facilities investment next year, it said. International equipment spending is to return to growth next year, SEMI said in a report, forecasting 21 percent growth to US$92 billion. The expansion would manly be driven by robust demand for semiconductors in the automotive and high-performance computing segments, the association said. “This quarter’s SEMI World Fab Forecast update
RSS