Johnson Lee, CEO of E Ink, acknowledged in early March that the Taiwanese company, which specializes in electronic paper, is not in a good place. Its display technology, present on e-readers, but also and especially on electronic shelf labels in supermarkets, saw a slowdown in sales at the beginning of the year. However, the period would be strategic as the brand hopes to make a pivot in 2025, with a breakthrough in advertising display screens, using the same e-paper technology, but adding color.
2025 would thus be "the year of large format color e-paper screens", marking an important step in the expansion of the company which is trying to assert its technology, in parallel with that of OLED screens, for an advantage of low consumption, and additional comfort for the eyes. By launching on large-format screens, E Ink is first targeting advertising displays. Enough to make the media more economical, and offer advertisers a way to attract attention thanks to the originality of the system.
Large color screens to compete with Samsung
On X, E Ink recently shared images of the Philips Tableaux, a product on which it worked, and which aims to both stores to display advertisements of the products sold, supermarkets to promote their food and drinks, restaurants or cafes, but also public places, such as galleries, museums, libraries, etc. In addition to being able to display 60,000 different shades of colors, the screens do not need to be connected to a power source. They compete directly with Samsung's screens presented at the ISE 2025 show.
As a reminder, e-paper technology only consumes energy when it changes its display. Color e-paper will therefore not be a new thing in 2025, but rather a consecration. In 2024, the sales dynamics for color e-readers, or tablets, such as the reMarkable Paper Pro. Among E Ink's main customers, we can count the American Walmart, but also Amazon, with its Kindle e-readers, Rakuten or even Sony and Philips.
The e-paper market has seen a second wind in the past year, after two years of decline, particularly in smart retail (which has increased demand for electronic shelf labels), but also thanks to the growing appetite of the education sector, interested in the user comfort and eye protection of e-paper technology. E Ink is exploring other use cases, such as that of touch screens on board cars, with Continental, or directly on the bodies, with BMW.
Source : Digitimes Asia
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