Jun

PVI Color E-Ink Display to make year end debut

Prime View International, makers of Electrophoretic display or EPD seems to be in a hurry with their color E Ink project and have set a December 2010 time line by which time it wants products graced with its color E Ink display to make it to the market. The new deadline has been revealed by none other than the company chairman Scott Liu and is a few months ahead of the 2011 first quarter deadline that was earlier envisaged.

The latest e-reader news has it that the color displays are in an advanced stage of development and samples have already been provided to leading e-reader manufacturers which includes Amazon and Barnes & Noble among others though there is no definite partnership reached with any e-reader manufacturer as of now. Also, with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos almost ruling out color kindles – he was recent quoted as saying a color Kindle is “a long way out” – its highly unlikely for a PVI color E Ink display to feature in a Kindle anytime soon.

In the meantime, the third quarter of this year will see the launch of a fresh batch of e-readers equipped with PVI’s monochrome display though most of the action is likely to be restricted to the Chinese market. PVI too has high hopes of the e-reader market in China and is extremely bullish of a strong performance there. The company believes the e-reader market in China is expected to grow to become 20 percent of the world e-reader market. It was late last year that PVI had acquired the Boston based E Ink Corp. in a deal worth US $215 million. PVI used to be the largest customer of E Ink and it alone accounted for more than half of E Ink’s total revenue before the acquisition. Now with E Ink under the control of PVI, anyone who is into manufacturing of e-readers and wants E Ink will have to turn to PVI.

In another development, PVI has ruled out entering the e-reader market with its own branded e-readers. This should put to rest what was being speculated for a while now that with a virtual monopoly in E Ink displays for almost all the major e-readers, its but just a matter of time for PVI to come up with its own e-reader. However, PVI CEO has denied this and said, “We won’t produce any PVI-branded e-readers since Amazon, Narnes & Noble and other well known e-reader firms are our customers, we won’t be making an e-reader that would in any way compete with our valued customers.”

Keep watching for more e-reader news.

Sovan Mandal (1746 Posts)

Sovan Mandal is the senior tablet and tech corespondent for goodereader.com. He brings a international approach to news that is not just applicable to the North American market, but also Asia, India, Europe and others. Sovy brings his own writing flavor to the website and is interested in Science Fiction, Technology and Writing. Any questions, send an email