I. Technological Development in Its Prime: A New Green Display Force in the Golden Age of Growth

In the global display industry landscape, China's display sector has shown vigorous vitality driven by cluster effects. As a key player in this field, e-paper technology, which has evolved over more than 60 years, is stepping into a golden development stage.

Against the backdrop of increasingly prominent global environmental polarization and contradictions between energy resources, e-paper not only reshapes the display market pattern with its technical characteristics but also shoulders the mission of advancing the "dual carbon" goals and digital transformation. As the optimal alternative to paperless solutions, it makes significant contributions to paper-like visual experiences and the ecological environment.

This advantage is accelerating the industry's penetration. Since 2022, e-paper application terminals have rapidly expanded from the stage of technical adaptation and exploration. By the first quarter of 2025, there were over 35 forms, covering multiple scenarios such as retail, education, office, and healthcare. Unlike the slow iteration of traditional home appliances, e-paper, as an IoT product, has accumulated "explosive" growth momentum, becoming a new species in the display industry with both social value and commercial potential.

II. Industry Scale: Ranking Among the World's Leading New Display Technologies with a Leading Growth Rate

The market performance of e-paper is also impressive. According to RUNTO data, in 2024, the e-paper display industry ranked among the world's leading new display technologies with a output value of 14.2 billion US dollars. It operates on different principles from Micro LED, OLED, and projection display technologies, each playing its own role. Moreover, it topped the growth rate of various display technology routes with a 29% increase.

RUNTO predicts that in 2025, the global shipment of e-paper application terminals will reach 397 million units, a year-on-year increase of 23.4%, hitting a new market peak.

Behind this achievement is the contribution of China's industrial chain. Currently, 96% of the world's e-paper modules are manufactured in China. From substrates, modules to complete machines and brands, China has formed a complete industrial cluster, becoming the "innovation hub" of the e-paper industry.

III. "2+1+N" Application Layout: Comprehensive Breakthroughs from Smart Retail to Consumer Electronics

In terms of application patterns, e-paper has built a "2+1+N" segmented terminal system: "2" refers to two core terminals—e-paper price tags and e-paper readers; "1" is the AI-driven innovative e-paper office notebook; "N" covers multiple scenarios such as digital signs, learning machines, monitors, and medical terminals. This layout not only consolidates the advantages in core markets but also reserves space for cross-border penetration.

As the largest terminal in terms of volume, e-paper price tags achieved a shipment volume of 287 million units in 2024, a year-on-year increase of 39.3%. Benefiting from the full implementation of smart retail, retail giants represented by Walmart have realized digital energy efficiency management and digital upgrading of production, sales, and inventory by deploying e-paper price tags, a trend that has driven the global retail industry to follow suit. In terms of product technology, traditional black-and-white price tags will gradually exit the market, and their released production capacity will also feed back to products still in the growth stage such as black-and-white readers.

The second largest terminal is the e-paper tablet. RUNTO collectively refers to three categories—readers, office notebooks, and learning notebooks—as e-paper tablets to facilitate the formation of a new mental model. In 2024, relying on the boom of learning tablets, e-paper tablets ushered in a growth peak. However, from the perspective of shipment structure, e-paper readers remain the core component, achieving double-digit growth of 13.3% and 27.7% consecutively in 2023-2024. The entire e-paper tablet product family is undergoing a rapid transformation from "e-books" to "smart terminals".

IV. Future Outlook: Orderly Expansion of the Chinese Market, the Era of Rapid Iteration Where Details Determine Success or Failure

As the industry enters a period of high growth and rapid iteration, technical details are becoming the key to competition. RUNTO's research shows that users' attention to the parameters of e-paper tablet products is highly focused: the "system" and "weight" of readers affect more than 90% of purchasing decisions; for office notebooks, subjective and objective experiences such as fluency, thickness, and weight are more valued. Driven by such demands, the iteration speed of China's e-paper product market has accelerated significantly, increasing from 23 new products in 2023 to 31 in 2024, a growth rate of 35%, allowing users to enjoy more choices amid "parameter involution".

Looking ahead to 2025, the growth momentum of the e-paper industry will continue to release. It is expected that the shipment volume of e-paper price tags (retail shelf type) will exceed 360 million units; the shipment volume of e-paper tablets will approach 19 million units, with the Chinese market accounting for about 3.1 million units, growing at a rate of over 30%, far exceeding the global average of 9.3%.

In terms of technical paths, colorization, lightweighting, and system optimization will be the main directions for terminal products. In terms of application scenarios, in-depth penetration into fields such as smart retail, education and office, healthcare, and transportation will open up more space. Just as e-paper has made the leap from "replacing paper" to "defining new display scenarios", its future lies not only in leading display technology but also in potentially becoming a key link connecting the green economy and the digital society.