E Ink snapped up for $215 million

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 1 Jun 2009 at 11:00

Prime View International, the company which manufactures the E Ink screens found on the majority of the world's eBook readers, is to buy the company that invented them.

PVI has had a $215 million bid for E Ink accepted, giving it a stranglehold on the emerging electronic paper market.

The company claims that buying E Ink will allow it to speed up research and development of the displays, with colour and flexible screens next on its hit list.

Taiwan-based Prime View is the world's biggest manufacturer of ePaper displays thanks to contracts with Amazon and Sony. The company also plans to raise between $100 million and $250 million by listing itself on the London Stock Exchange.

"The people in both companies will unite to provide the world's best digital reading experience and that will benefit all our customers and end users", claims Scott Liu, the chief executive of Prime View.

The electronic books market is expected to grow from 1.1 million devices in 2008 to 20 million in 2012, according to iSuppli.