First half of 2011 was a favorable time for e-ink screens

Sep 19, 2011 12:53 GMT  ·  By

Even though e-readers have started using other sorts of display technologies, E Ink's e-paper is still clearly dominant, and the positive evolution of sales and revenues in the first half of 2011 makes this very clear.

Anyone who pays any level of attention to the e-book reader market will have at least once heard of the term e-paper.

Sold primarily by E Ink Holdings, the display technology is a greyscale panel solution which has the asset of being not just highly energy efficient, but also similar, in looks, to regular paper.

It is these two qualities that allowed it to become a part of virtually every e-reader out there, save the Barnes and Noble Nook Color and its few competitors.

During the first half of the ongoing year (2011), e-readers didn't get as much attention, on the part of the media, as last year.

Of course, with the tablet segment snatching first place on consumer interest scales, this was to be expected.

Just the fact that they didn't get overly advertised didn't mean they started to decline, however, despite how some said, and hoped, tablets would steal their thunder like they did to laptops.

Instead, the production value, at least for Taiwan, where E Ink is based, grew by 6% compared to the second half of 2010.

This left the total figure at NT$13.2 billion (US$444.67 million/325 million Euro), which is 70% higher than in the January-June period of 2010.

E Ink had total sales of NT$3.47 billion ($116 million/84 million Euro) in August alone, due to new e-readers being launched, and the sum should grow to NT$10 billion ($336 million/245 million Euro) for the third quarter as a whole.

Nevertheless, despite all this, e-readers aren't expected to start competing with smartphones and tablet PCs.

Then again, their purpose and features never actually suggested this was among the segment's goals either.