Future Displays: E Ink Has Digital Signage Ambitions, But Costs And Formats Are Adoption Barriers

January 17, 2025 by Dave Haynes

This is a reworked version of a story from the Sixteen:Nine Future Displays report – a free download available to all readers. You can find the information and download page here …

Taiwan-based e-paper giant E Ink sees digital signage and digital out of home as a next big, scalable market for its larger color displays, but the company has a couple of significant hurdles to clear: high unit costs and relatively small display sizes.

Right now, E Ink’s color e-paper displays cost 8-10 times more than LCD monitors of the same general size, the largest commercially available color displays are much smaller than the 55 and 65-inch flat panels used for most digital signage and DOOH work.

Tim O’Malley, a Boston-based executive who is the public point person for developing E Ink products as signage, acknowledges this, but sees a path forward through increased production volume and improved system integration.

“We generally have two large commercial growth engines that are growing at some steady, more like linear rate, and that’s the consumer experience side of things: e-readers, e-notes and shelf tags,” explains Tim O’Malley, the Boston-based executive who is the public point person for developing E Ink products as signage.

“The best people (within E Ink) are going to be on signage, because we want that to be exponential growth … the third engine that we can put in place to then expand the company’s revenue that much again. Because signage is a big opportunity. Advertising is a big opportunity.”

The company isn’t aiming for price parity with LCD displays, but thinks a more modest goal of 1.5 to 2.5 times LCD prices is possible – and at a level E Ink believes would drive significant market adoption while also maintaining healthy margins.

E Ink’s color technology has matured significantly in the last few years, making it suitable for advertising applications. European regulations around energy usage for advertising are also creating new opportunities for e-paper’s energy-efficient displays. Unlike LCDs, e-paper only uses power when updating content and offers excellent readability in bright sunlight.

The potential market is, in theory, enormous. There are now a lot of digital ad displays deployed, but more than 90% of advertising displays worldwide still use paper. From street corners in Paris to shop windows globally, there’s a vast opportunity to replace static paper signs with networked digital alternatives that can display multiple advertisements and be updated remotely.

Companies are already trying to capitalize on this potential. Toronto-based Praevar has launched sustainable digital signage solutions using E Ink’s Spectra 6 color displays, while established players like ComQi and AUO Display Plus are developing merchandising applications.

The Taiwan specialty display firm Agile Display Solutions will show a 77-inch color E Ink-based poster at ISE in Barcelona in a couple of weeks, and a much larger Taiwan firm, DynaScan, is also expected to show something similar.

But those are R&D prototypes. The largest commercially available E Ink color display is 42 inches for Kaleido displays, which use a color filter, and 31.5 inches for the premium Spectra 6 line.

You can read the full story on E Ink, and other interesting companies and products focusing on sustainability, in the new Sixteen:Nine Future Displays report.

Sixteen:Nine Future Displays is a free download available to all readers. You can find the information and download page here …

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