[Digitimes] E Ink sees revenues decline over 60% on year in January

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Not good news for the eInk industry. (The quote contains 90% of the content but I'll provide a link for those who want it.

EPD maker E Ink Holdings (EIH) has posted consolidated revenues of NT$1.42 billion (US$48.02 million) for January, down 11% sequentially and 63.6% on year, according to a company filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE).

Despite decreased revenues for January, the company is expected to post revenues of over NT$40 billion in 2012, an increase of 5% from a year earlier, according to a Chinese-language Economic Daily News (EDN) report.

The company is scheduled to reveal its financial results for 2011 on February 22.

Link to article

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[azazel1024]

Maybe come up with an improved display to drive sales of new devices for new users and users wanting to upgrade.

Just a thought. E-ink Pearl nice. However, it has been...what about 2 odds years since they came out with it? Sounds like time for a new display.

Triton is all "nice" and all that, but it is pretty low res (800x600 effective in ~10" display). Maybe a higher constrast, more shades and higher resolution B&W display on tap? Maybe lower power use, faster refresh, etc?

Just some thoughts on the matter.

[fjtorres]

Hmm, January panel deliveries would go into March deliveries.
A glut of holiday hardware in the pipeline would result in a reduction in orders in January.
A further sign of a leveling-off of demand for dedicated reader devices in the NorthAmerican market.
That adds up to four red flags so far.

[wizwor]

Probably selling the panels for less -- that's how you get $79 readers. I wonder if volume is down as well.

[andyh2000]

Originally Posted by azazel1024

...
Triton is all "nice" and all that, but it is pretty low res (800x600 effective in ~10" display).
...

Not true. It's effectively 1600x1200 in black and white with an 800x600 colour resolution as used in the Ectaco jetBook Color and Hanvon C920 9.7" colour eReaders. Have a look over here for the gory details: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=167587

Andrew

[RainingLemur]

Originally Posted by andyh2000

Not true. It's effectively 1600x1200 in black and white with an 800x600 colour resolution as used in the Ectaco jetBook Color and Hanvon C920 9.7" colour eReaders. Have a look over here for the gory details: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=167587

Andrew

That is one handsome looking machine.

I wonder if we'll see improved eInk displays coming with future Kindles/Nooks/SonyReaders/etc.

[scrapking]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Hmm, January panel deliveries would go into March deliveries.
A glut of holiday hardware in the pipeline would result in a reduction in orders in January.
A further sign of a leveling-off of demand for dedicated reader devices in the NorthAmerican market.
That adds up to four red flags so far.

How much of that is actual and/or anticipated reductions in E-Ink e-readers, in favour of e-reader tablets like the Kobo Vox and Kindle Fire?

And, as "wizwor" says, these are revenue numbers (which may be dropping for the e-ink display manufacturers), not unit sales numbers; unit sales could be dropping less, if at all.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by scrapking

How much of that is actual and/or anticipated reductions in E-Ink e-readers, in favour of e-reader tablets like the Kobo Vox and Kindle Fire?

And, as "wizwor" says, these are revenue numbers (which may be dropping for the e-ink display manufacturers), not unit sales numbers; unit sales could be dropping less, if at all.

Month-to-month declined, too. And prices don't vary much month-to-month.

Worth considering: eink readers are starting to show marked seasonality (in fact, sales profiles are starting to look like gaming consoles) with huge spikes in the XMAS holiday season followed by a drop early in the year. So, by itself, a december/january dip isn't much to worry about.

But the context, the current environment where NOOK STR's had a "shortfall", despite 50%-off sales, and are now being given away with subscriptions; where the uber-hot Kindle FIRE did *not* sell out and is already showing up as a refurb; where Hachette ebook revenue gowth has leveled off at 20-22% and no longer offsets their other losses...

A scenario is starting to take shape where the bulk of the people who can justify current-tech dedicated reader gadgets in the US have them (19% of the US population, according to a recent survey; with tablets also at 19%) and what remains is the casual reader (2-3 book a year buyers) market. US growth will continue, but slower than recent years and the seasonality will be more pronounced.

In this scenario, overall market growth rate will hinge on whether or not non-US markets evolve and ebooks get mainstreamed there or not. If the reader vendors don't find new markets to provide added growth, things will get very tight until new tech comes along to entice other reader classes.

The gold-rush days of fast, easy growth may be over.
Now we get to see what a mature (narrative text) ebook business looks like.

[azazel1024]

Originally Posted by andyh2000

Not true. It's effectively 1600x1200 in black and white with an 800x600 colour resolution as used in the Ectaco jetBook Color and Hanvon C920 9.7" colour eReaders. Have a look over here for the gory details: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=167587

Andrew

I wasn't very clear, but my point was 800x600 color resolution, which in a 9.7" display IS bad. B&W resolution is pretty decent, but actually compared to 600x800 resoultion in a 6" ereader, that is only slightly higher DPI, though heck I'd take it. Even simply moving from 600x800 to something like 720x960 would be nice, especially if you can go from 16 shades of grey to something like 256 shades (or hell I'd even simply take a doubling to 32 shades). Doubling the contrast along the way would also be nice (but again, I'll just take any notable improvements).

[azazel1024]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Month-to-month declined, too. And prices don't vary much month-to-month.

Worth considering: eink readers are starting to show marked seasonality (in fact, sales profiles are starting to look like gaming consoles) with huge spikes in the XMAS holiday season followed by a drop early in the year. So, by itself, a december/january dip isn't much to worry about.

But the context, the current environment where NOOK STR's had a "shortfall", despite 50%-off sales, and are now being given away with subscriptions; where the uber-hot Kindle FIRE did *not* sell out and is already showing up as a refurb; where Hachette ebook revenue gowth has leveled off at 20-22% and no longer offsets their other losses...

A scenario is starting to take shape where the bulk of the people who can justify current-tech dedicated reader gadgets in the US have them (19% of the US population, according to a recent survey; with tablets also at 19%) and what remains is the casual reader (2-3 book a year buyers) market. US growth will continue, but slower than recent years and the seasonality will be more pronounced.

In this scenario, overall market growth rate will hinge on whether or not non-US markets evolve and ebooks get mainstreamed there or not. If the reader vendors don't find new markets to provide added growth, things will get very tight until new tech comes along to entice other reader classes.

The gold-rush days of fast, easy growth may be over.
Now we get to see what a mature (narrative text) ebook business looks like.

Not simply that, but you start getting in to the new device release to drive sales. Which depending on your point of view can be good or bad. If the market is fairly saturated, what you have to do is attempt to drive owners of existing devices in to buying new devices.

That is, at least if you are making an actual profit on hardware. If you are taking a loss, or taking a loss downstream (IE warranty servicing/replacement costs) then it doesn't make sense to push new models with new and improved features much...unless of course you are attempting to drive competition with other ereader sellers to get owners to buy books from you.

I am hoping B&N and Kobo are viable enough financially to start competing against Amazon in improving ereaders. I like my nook ST a lot, but I can still see ways it could improve (higher resolution display, more contrast, faster screen refreshes, lower ghosting, more shades of grey, more storage space, maybe color at some point, some kind of built in front illumination (that has NO negatives).

[Barty]

I remember seeing stats on overall readership, the % of people who read no book in previous year was pretty high. So there is a saturation point for dedicated ereaders.

I hope this spurs eink to improve on the pearl display. Better contrast, please.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Barty

I remember seeing stats on overall readership, the % of people who read no book in previous year was pretty high. So there is a saturation point for dedicated ereaders.

I hope this spurs eink to improve on the pearl display. Better contrast, please.

While there may be some improvements to be made there, say by getting a whiter background, I'm not sure that kind of incremental improvement makes the most economic sense if the North American market is in fact leveling off.

If we are indeed approaching an inflection point in the tech adoption curve, and not just looking at a pronounced seasonal effect compounded by a bit of holiday cannnibalization by the new reader/tablets, it will take more of a generational improvement to get growth back to the extremely high rates of the past two years. So putting development efforts into getting video-grade refresh or higher indor color saturation, or both, is going to result in a higher return than just a better B&W contrast ratio.

The next generation eink has to start appealing at more than just recreational narrative text readers, either by going after the academic or corporate markets, or providing a better experience for periodicals. There's more money to be made, I think, in lighter and cheaper large format readers and in color; ideally, both. A Triton II that offered LCD-grade color on a lighter device with multi-day battery life is more likely to bring in casual readers and other fence-sitters into the game than a slightly better B&W, no matter how cheap.

Easy sales just on access to ebooks are going to be lower for a while. The time looks about right for *cheap* color eink readers to start ramping up.

[scrapking]

Originally Posted by azazel1024

I am hoping B&N and Kobo are viable enough financially to start competing against Amazon in improving ereaders. I like my nook ST a lot, but I can still see ways it could improve (higher resolution display, more contrast, faster screen refreshes, lower ghosting, more shades of grey, more storage space, maybe color at some point, some kind of built in front illumination (that has NO negatives).

With Rakuten behind them, Kobo's very well capitalised now and I'm hopeful about things like that. B&N I'm less sure about, as they're bleeding money unfortunately.

[karunaji]

It is a shame that e-ink technology is stagnating. I think that the potential of this technology is not exhausted yet. I would like to have an affordable e-ink computer screen, for example, but I don't see any movements into this area yet. Is it due to stifling patent issues or simply an economic recession that prevents it?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by karunaji

It is a shame that e-ink technology is stagnating. I think that the potential of this technology is not exhausted yet. I would like to have an affordable e-ink computer screen, for example, but I don't see any movements into this area yet. Is it due to stifling patent issues or simply an economic recession that prevents it?

Probably cost-benefit analysis.
(There is no reason for patent issues to crop up, stiflying or otherwise.)

Eink screen volumes at 6in are extremely high, but low at 10in, which results in high unit prices. Going to 20+ inches, absent really high demand, would likely result in extremely high prices. And that is without factoring in the lack of color and video-grade refresh rates.

LCD is a known technology, both design- and manufacturing-wise so getting big doesn't add too much to the cost and, equally important, there is a *known* market for larger-than-eink sizes, so producing 24in LCD monitors has become a commodity business, producing US$149 and lower prices for them, with 20in models routinely hitting $99. (Absurdly large displays are already commercially viable with LCD, with 90in displays headed to market this year, priced in the $5-6000 range.)

Color eink panels by themselves are such a new product that even the 10in size probably costs more than the full 24in LCD monitor. Even 10in B&W panels are likely more expensive than the monitor.

Add in, then, that the strengths of eink outdoor readability and extremely low power consumption aren't going to drive many sales in the office equipment market and I think we can expect computer displays to remain out of the reach of the eink tech for the forseeable future.

Which isn't to say the things can't be built; just that they would likely sell for high 4-digit prices.

Do you want one *that* bad?