Amazon Kindle Manufacture Buys E-Ink For $215 Million

Prime View International, the Taiwan-based company that manufactures the Amazon Kindle, announced today that they had signed an agreement to acquire E-Ink Corporation for $215 million. This will place Prime View in a prime spot within the growing e-reader industry.

With the new combined company they will expand capacity and develop improvements for the ePaper display screens. E-Ink is the company that developed the digital ink technology where it requires very low power to display digital print on a screen.

"The ePaper display module market will grow to over $3 billion by 2013. This market will see further growth with the emergence of color displays and flexible displays, serving eBook/eTextbook, eNewspaper/eMagazine and eDocument markets. Currently, electrophoretic display technology has more than 90% market share in the overall ePaper displays, and E Ink is the #1 supplier of electrophoretic materials," according Dr. Jennifer Colegrove, DisplaySearchs Director of Display Technologies.

"The market for electronic book devices such as the SONY Reader and Amazon Kindle is forecasted to grow from 1.1 million units in 2008 to 20 million units in 2012, a cumulative annual growth rate of 105% over the four-year period," said iSuppli analyst Vinita Jakhanwal, "PVI and E Ink enabled this market back in 2005 and they have been the display market leaders ever since."

The transaction between the two companies is expected to close in Q4 of 2009.