14 DAY TRIAL // It appears that, with e-reader sales being what they are, the fourth quarter of 2010 was most rewarding in terms of revenues for a certain company that specializes in a certain sort of displays.
E Ink can be said to be among the companies that saw their business rise significantly in profitability even during the economic uncertainty that defined the past few years.
2008 and 2009 were very troublesome years for the worldwide market as a whole and for the IT industry in particular.
Basically, sales dropped all around and only some product types managed to rise in shipments sequentially.
This meant that most companies incurred financial losses, but there were some that were fortunate enough to make components for popular new concepts.
Netbooks were the reason many laptop makers didn't do worse than they did, while e-readers had a similar effect on makers of electrophoretic displays.
E Ink happens to be the largest supplier of such screens, meaning that it reaped the most benefits from the ever increasing sales of e-readers.
Granted, with color devices starting to come out, it is unclear if e-paper sales will stay as strong as before, though the fact that they are expected to double does seem to paint a pretty picture.
Still, the fact remains that E Ink Holdings scored high revenues during the fourth quarter of 2010, of NT$9.73 billion to be exact, which is the equivalent of US$331.29 million.
The company accounted for 90% of all e-reader shipments for the global e-reader market and had, for the whole year, solid revenue of NT$25.18 billion, while the net profit was of NT$4.03 billion.
The EPC was of NT$3.81 and the gross margin of 31% for the year 2010, while fourth quarter profit before tax ended up at a record NT$1.88 billion (EPS was of NT$1.8).