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E Ink Holdings Inc. (E Ink), the pioneer and global commercial leader in e-paper technology (Electrophoretic Display) was listed as one of the Asia-Pacific Climate Leaders in 2022 in a report by the Financial Times, Nikkei and Statista in June 2022. The report acknowledged companies that achieved a reduction in their Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions between 2015 and 2020.
The global E-Paper Display Market is estimated to be $ 2.15 bn in 2022 and is projected to reach $ 5.58 Bn by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 21.01%, according to Research and Markets. The company announced plans to invest in a new office building with a manufacturing line as well as four new production lines to increase capacity to keep up with the increasing demand from clients in 2021.
“For the whole of this year, we are positive about the business outlook. However, it will largely hinge on how many key components we can secure,” said E Ink chairman Johnson Lee in a teleconference in 2021 as reported by Taipei Times.
E Ink riding high on demand
The Taiwan-based company creates, produces and sells liquid crystal displays using thin film transistors (TFT-LCDs) based on technology from MIT’s Media Lab. The products are mostly employed in industrial instruments, i.e. camcorders, digital cameras, vehicle navigation systems and mobile video systems. It was founded in 1992 as Taiwan’s first TFT LCD company with a focus on high-quality small-to-medium-sized TFT LCDs.
E Ink’s “Bistable” technology significantly reduces power consumption, providing long battery life as the display only consumes power when something is changing like turning a page in an e-reader, such as the Amazon Kindle.
“E Ink is benefiting from a boom in the various applications of e-paper technology,” Gilbert Lu, an analyst at Cathay Futures, said in January 2022 in a note. He doubled his target price for the stock adding that “It has a clear plan to expand capacity, so its business will grow steadily.”
The shares of E Ink climbed 365% over the past two years, hitting a milestone in January 2022, valuing the company at more than $6 bn. Investors anticipate that E Ink will grow to be another Taiwanese success story in the electronics and semiconductor industries.
For the quarter that ended June 30, E Ink posted a record-high net profit of NT$2.37 bn ($7.44 mn), up 71% from NT$1.39 bn YOY, according to the company’s financial report. Basic earnings per share from ongoing operations increased from NT$2.26 to NT$3.36.
For FY2021, the company posted record revenue of NT$19.65 bn ($617 m), the highest in the past nine years. This is despite the closure of its main factory in China due to strict zero-Covid measures.
The record-breaking numbers have surely helped the company’s stock price, which has shot up nearly 200% in the last year alone. The company has a market capitalization of NT$252 bn (~$7.91 bn). The stock currently has a PE ratio of 35.66, with a forward PE ratio of about 32.54. The company’s price-to-book ratio stood at 7.03.
Sustainability and Future
The e-paper provider to Amazon Inc. Kindle has been striving toward zero carbon emissions for several years to lessen the effects of climate change and to promote sustainable solutions. E Ink has been researching the CO2 implications of paper-based or LCDs vs electronic paper (ePaper) displays as part of this endeavour. Since there are more colour options than just black and white, the business is envisioning expanding its technology being adopted by art galleries, libraries, and transportation hubs to further diversify its consumer base.
In early 2022, BMW unveiled a prototype of iX Flow, a colour-changing sport utility vehicle in collaboration with E Ink Holdings. The partnership which started in 2019, included solving the challenge of tailoring the layers for the vehicle to ensure withstanding extreme temperatures and weather conditions in the new product. The E Ink film comprises a variety of colour pigments that in response to electrical stimulation will rise to the skin’s surface and change the colour of the vehicle’s skin.
This novel technology has opened new markets for E Ink and has the potential to reduce energy consumption along with providing unique aesthetics to automobiles. Although the company first targeted designers and architects who deal with buildings, carmakers represent a significant potential growth market for E Ink. The technology, marketed as Prism, was notably featured in a sizable programmable art project at the airport of San Diego.
“Personalization is a key focus,” noted FY Gan, E Ink’s president, in an interview with Bloomberg. “As industries undergo digital transformation, they will need new materials and new manufacturing models.”
E Ink has pledged to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2040 under the Climate Pledge, co-founded by Amazon. In addition to the Climate pledge, E Ink also joined Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi), a partnership between CDP, the United Nations Global Compact, World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World-Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) to continue its efforts on sustainability.