E Ink Holdings Inc (元太科技), the world’s largest e-paper display supplier, yesterday said it expects moderate revenue decline in the second half of the year, as some e-reader customers have become more conservative about consumer spending amid concerns over US tariffs.
The company’s second-quarter revenue reached a peak for the year to date at NT$10.63 billion (US$354.81 million), driven by front-loading and model transition to color screens from monochrome in the e-reader and e-note markets, it said.
“The market sentiment shows that most people are taking a wait-and-see attitude ... and are relatively conservative about the second half, especially about the consumer sector,” E Ink chairman Johnson Lee (李政昊) told an online investors’ conference.
Photo: CNA
E Ink’s order intake might weaken in the fourth quarter, but it expects an improvement in the first quarter next year, given that most customers are optimistic about the industry’s growth trend, Lee said.
The fourth quarter is a low season for the electronic shelf label (ESL) business, but customers, including system integrators and retailers, are positive about ESL adoption in the long term, he said.
Overall, the company is optimistic about its full-year revenue growth after sales in the first seven months jumped 38.43 percent annually to NT$22.58 billion, it said.
E Ink’s production lines are all fully utilized, which makes it hard to catch up with demand, the company said.
It expects its new production line, called H5, to enter volume production this month or next month after a delay early this year due to technology bottlenecks, it said.
E Ink is investing in its research-and-development team in San Jose, California, and is considering building a pilot production line there as part of the company’s increasing investments in the US, Lee said.
Despite foreign exchange losses of NT$2.14 billion in the second quarter due to the drastic appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar against the US dollar, E Ink’s net profit in the quarter grew 47 percent to NT$2.97 billion from NT$2.02 billion in the same quarter last year.
Earnings per share rose to NT$2.58 from NT$1.76 for the same period.
Gross margin last quarter jumped to 60.3 percent from 47.25 percent a year earlier thanks to a favorable product mix and improved operational efficiency, it said.
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