E Ink Holdings Inc (元太科技), the world’s largest e-paper display supplier, yesterday said business is recovering gradually from an inventory correction cycle thanks to rapid and smooth technology upgrades in using new color e-paper displays on electronic readers and electronic shelf labels (ESLs).
The company said most customers are expected to level off extra older-generation color e-paper displays used in ESLs this quarter, resulting in a pickup in the third quarter. What is more encouraging is that a large retailer in North America has started replacing paper labels with ESLs, joining its European and Chinese peers.
The company expects new four color e-paper displays used in ESLs would account for about 90 percent, from 80 percent, of total ESL shipments.
Photo: Lisa Wang, Taipei Times
“We believe the first quarter is the lowest point. Our revenue in the second quarter will be better than the first quarter,” E Ink chairman Johnson Lee (李政昊) told media on the sideline of the Touch Taiwan display show in Taipei yesterday.
The main growth drivers this year would be electronic readers and electronic notebooks due to the display upgrade, Lee said.
“Customers said sales of their electronic readers with color displays are much better than they had expected,” Lee said, adding that the company’s equipment is fully utilized.
The company believes large e-paper displays would be the next growth driver, Lee said. The 32-inch cooler e-paper displays demonstrated equally good color performance compared with paper prints and should be a good replacement for paper posters, he said.
E Ink said that its new larger e-paper displays for public displays are to enter volume production early next year, after a new factory in Hsinchu starts operations at the end of this year.
Flat-panel makers AUO Corp (友達) and Innolux Corp (群創) also expect a gradual recovery starting in the second half of this year, backed by rising demand for panels used in large TVs and new artificial intelligence (AI) PCs.
AUO said demand for TV panels is picking up, indicating that the display industry has hit its bottom, after suffering the most in 2022 and last year.
The company witnessed a pickup in demand for 65-inch TV panels ahead of the Paris Olympics and UEFA Euro 2024, which are to take place in second and third quarters, AUO said.
“The display industry has weathered through the worst period in 2022 and 2023. The industry has returned to the healthy track,” AUO chairman Paul Peng (彭双浪) said. “We expect the introduction of AI PCs in the second half of this year to bring strong demand.”
The price of 65-inch TV panels are expected to rise at the fastest rate of 2.9 percent sequentially to about US$176 per unit this month, compared with price increases between 1.6 and 2.8 percent estimated for for 55-inch, 43-inch and 22-inch TV panels, price information provided by market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) showed.
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) is expected to share his views about the artificial intelligence (AI) industry’s prospects during his speech at the company’s 37th anniversary ceremony, as AI servers have become a new growth engine for the equipment manufacturing service provider. Lam’s speech is much anticipated, as Quanta has risen as one of the world’s major AI server suppliers. The company reported a 30 percent year-on-year growth in consolidated revenue to NT$1.41 trillion (US$43.35 billion) last year, thanks to fast-growing demand for servers, especially those with AI capabilities. The company told investors in November last year that
Intel Corp has named Tasha Chuang (莊蓓瑜) to lead Intel Taiwan in a bid to reinforce relations between the company and its Taiwanese partners. The appointment of Chuang as general manager for Intel Taiwan takes effect on Thursday, the firm said in a statement yesterday. Chuang is to lead her team in Taiwan to pursue product development and sales growth in an effort to reinforce the company’s ties with its partners and clients, Intel said. Chuang was previously in charge of managing Intel’s ties with leading Taiwanese PC brand Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), which included helping Asustek strengthen its global businesses, the company
Taiwanese suppliers to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) are expected to follow the contract chipmaker’s step to invest in the US, but their relocation may be seven to eight years away, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. When asked by opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Niu Hsu-ting (牛煦庭) in the legislature about growing concerns that TSMC’s huge investments in the US will prompt its suppliers to follow suit, Kuo said based on the chipmaker’s current limited production volume, it is unlikely to lead its supply chain to go there for now. “Unless TSMC completes its planned six
TikTok abounds with viral videos accusing prestigious brands of secretly manufacturing luxury goods in China so they can be sold at cut prices. However, while these “revelations” are spurious, behind them lurks a well-oiled machine for selling counterfeit goods that is making the most of the confusion surrounding trade tariffs. Chinese content creators who portray themselves as workers or subcontractors in the luxury goods business claim that Beijing has lifted confidentiality clauses on local subcontractors as a way to respond to the huge hike in customs duties imposed on China by US President Donald Trump. They say this Chinese decision, of which Agence
RSS