If you pay a little attention to the market research data this year, you can find: once a very popular e-book reader, whether it is the market size or the industry outlook and other related survey forecasts, unknowingly, the entire silent. It is understood that in the first quarter of 2012, the global e-book reader market shipments even showed a very significant annual decline (up to 30%-more than 40%). The main reason is that Tablet computers, with their flashy screens, have attracted the attention of mobile enthusiasts, and manufacturers up and down the electronics supply chain are aggressively positioning themselves in the tablet space. E-book readers, by contrast, have yet to jump out of the gray scale to display black and white screens. Global e-reader shipments reached 25 million units in 2011, and some research institutions had earlier predicted that shipments could reach 30 million units in 2012. However, the results of recent quarters of PT-Ink, the world's leading supplier of e-paper displays and screens for e-readers, show that PT-Ink's cumulative consolidated revenues for the first half of 2012 were about T $8.3bn, down more than 50 per cent year-on-year from T $17bn in the first half of 2011.

      Since PT-INK accounts for more than 90% of the global e-paper display market for e-readers, it is not difficult to infer the decline in the shipment of e-readers and e-paper displays this year from the performance changes of PT-INK. It is generally expected that 2012 e-reader shipments will decline compared to last year unless brand manufacturers launch new models of e-readers in the second half of the year and e-readers regain their focus in the consumer market.

      The main reason is that tablets are becoming more accepted by more consumers and the market continues to grow. Because the tablet computer adopts the TFT-LCD LCD panel with fast response speed, rich color and high resolution as the display screen, it can fully support the dynamic picture, video and audio functions, not only like an enlarged version of the mobile phone, but also like a portable LCDMonitor, which can meet the needs of the Internet at any time, but also can add or reduce the support time not too long reading. In particular, Apple's NewiPad, which was released in March 2012, has a Retina retina screen that transcends human retina recognition. It has been more successful in convincing consumers that tablet computers can bring new visual experiences (whether or not the human eye actually feels much difference).

      As for e-paper display, although it has the characteristics and advantages of paper-like display, such as the principle of reflective display technology, not harmful to eyes, thin and light, and extremely power saving, it is generally very suitable for reading. In addition, recently, e-book readers have been developed with the function of networking, supporting simple Internet surfing and downloading of books, which is also increasingly convenient. However, the development of electronic paper display in dynamic display and color, there are still technical bottlenecks to break through.

      This shortcoming in the TFT-LCD LCD panel technology continues to update and improve, and towards the direction of energy saving development, more prominent. In addition, organic light-emitting display OLED panel, which also emphasizes energy saving and self-lighting, has been commercialized. The energy-saving advantages of traditional e-paper display are gradually becoming less obvious. On the contrary, the black-and-white characteristics that are not easy to color and gray scale display increase the application pressure of e-paper.

      Although it is doubtful whether the global tablet computer market will reach 90 million shipments in 2012, the brand concentration is still high, and the industry profit cannot feed the supply chain. But in recent quarters, Amazon (AMZN), the dominant e-reader, has shifted its focus to the KindleFire tablet, enough to take the e-reader market by storm.

      With the original ebook reader manufacturers, one after another to promote the tablet computer, electronic paper display has not been able to effectively break the gray scale display black and white bottleneck premise, electronic paper display depends on the ebook reader to revive, it seems more difficult. Recently, Yuan-Tai E-Ink is actively developing new applications of e-paper other than e-readers, such as printer paper, electronic music, electronic labels, electronic posters and other fields that require less color and reaction speed, hoping to create another era for the application of e-paper display.