Annual Report | Summary and Prospect of China’s E-paper Tablet Market in 2022

According to the “China ePaper Paper Retail Market Monthly Tracker” released by RUNTO, the sales volume of China’s e-paper tablet market in 2022 was 1.02 million, accounting for 9.3% of the global market. Among them, the sales volume of online channels was 679000, accounting for 67% of the overall market.
Sales channel structure of China’s e-paper tablet market in 2022
Data source: RUNTO, unit:%
In terms of sales amount, the sales amount of online market in 2022 will be 1.42 billion yuan, with an average unit price of 2091 yuan. According to the online retail data of RUNTO, Q2 and Q3 have relatively high market heat and relatively large sales scale, accounting for 29.6% and 26.8% of the whole year respectively.
Quarterly sales volume of China’s e-paper flat online market in 2022
Data source: online data of RUNTO, unit: 100 million yuan
On the whole, 2022 is the first year of the outbreak of China’s e-paper tablet market, but from the perspective of China’s market share in the world, the market is still in the cultivation stage. Brand manufacturers also need to make efforts to cultivate user habits, product hardware strength and software adaptation, so as to gradually open the market.
Product structure: rapid decline of readers; Smart office books are becoming the mainstream
With the announcement of Kindle’s withdrawal from China, the sales of e-paper reader market has declined significantly. At the same time, of the 48 new products released in 2022, 31 are smart office books. As a result, the market has changed in a pattern of ebb and flow. In previous years, e-paper tablets were dominated by reading scenes. In 2022, with the help of various factors, they will become the market dominated by readers and smart office books.
In terms of sales volume, according to the online data of RUNTO, the online sales volume of readers in the e-paper tablet market in 2022 will be 419000, accounting for 61.7%; The sales volume of intelligent office online is 250000, accounting for 36.8%; The online sales volume of intelligent learning is 10000, accounting for 1.5%.
Sales structure of segmented products in China’s e-paper flat online market in 2022
Data source: online data of RUNTO, unit: 10000 sets
In the first and second half of the year, the proportion of readers in the second half of the year decreased by 10 percentage points compared with the first half of the year; Smart office books increased by 8.8 percentage points and smart learning books increased by 1.3 percentage points.
Brand structure: in the first half of the year, the Kindle is dominant, and in the second half of the year, domestic brands are dominant
The annual online sales of Kindle in the Chinese market reached 162000 units. The second is the scale of about 100000 units for Zhangyue, Wenshi and iFLYTEK. Huawei ranks fifth with 53000 online sales, and offline stores are still its important channel.
Top 10 brand sales in China’s e-paper flat online market in 2022
Data source: online data of RUNTO, unit: 10000 sets
In the first half of the year, the Kindle was the largest, with an online sales volume of 105000 units, followed by about 60000 units of Handreading and Wenshi, and the other brands were in the online sales volume of 30000 units.
In the second half of the year, the online market has undergone drastic changes, and the Kindle has rapidly declined, with sales volume only half of that in the first half of the year. According to online data of RUNTO, iFLYTEK has become the top e-paper tablet brand in online sales in the second half of the year, with sales of more than 63000 units. Palm reading, aragonite and Kindle are in the same gear, about 50000. The market performance of Duokan, Huawei, Mobin and Hanwang were all fair. Hanwang doubled in the second half of the year compared with the first half.
On the whole, in the second half of the year, the protagonist of the e-paper tablet online market became a domestic brand. Both the sales volume and the number of new products released (refer to the article “The Complete Map of New Product Releases of Electronic Paper Tablets in 2022”) have achieved rapid growth. As previously judged, the first year of the outbreak of China’s e-paper tablet market has come, and more peer, cross-border and foreign brands are running into the market.
Up to now, RUNTO has divided the e-paper tablet brand into four camps:
Traditional professional reader brands, including Kindle, Palm Reader, Ink Table, Bigme, Dashang, Wenshi, Hanwang, etc; Consumer electronics brands, including Huawei, Xiaomi, Hisense, Lenovo, Sharp, etc; Application software brands, including iFLYTEK, Impression Notes, etc;
Vertical scene brands, such as MAXHUB in office scenes, Thor in game scenes, and VERTU in luxury scenes.
Functional structure: towards color, intelligence and synergy
From the product screen, according to the online monitoring data of RUNTO, the sales volume of black and white ink screens in China’s online market accounts for 97%, while that of full-color products accounts for only 3%. On December 13, 2022, head screen supplier Yuantai Technology publicly announced that the full-color e-paper technology E Ink Gallery 3 has entered mass production, including many e-paper tablet manufacturers such as iFLYTEK, Bigme, Granite, Palm Reading, Pocket Book and AOC, which will successively launch full-color new products this year. In 2023, colorization will be the main theme of the development of e-paper flat products.
From the perspective of fingerprint recognition function, 22% of China’s e-paper tablet online sales in 2022 will support fingerprint recognition, while in the first half of the year, the penetration rate of this function is only 17%.
From the perspective of battery capacity, the sales volume of electronic paper tablets below 2000mAh accounts for the highest proportion, reaching 50%. The main reason is that the current sales volume of readers is still dominant, and batteries with lower battery capacity are generally configured. However, compared with 57% in the first half of the year, the decline of low capacity batteries is significant. More intelligent office books are equipped with high capacity batteries of more than 3000mAh.
Basic functional structure of China’s e-paper flat online market in 2022
Data source: online data of RUNTO, unit:%
From the perspective of handwriting function, according to the online monitoring data of RUNTO, 41% of products support handwriting, while the sales volume of products that support handwriting in the first half of the year accounted for 38%, and the performance in the second half of the year increased by 3 percentage points. Among the stylus, the sales volume of electromagnetic stylus accounts for 77%, and the proportion of stylus only using capacitance mode is 21%, and 2% of the products are electromagnetic+capacitance mode.
Handwriting type structure of China’s e-paper tablet online market in 2022
Data source: online data of RUNTO, unit:%
From the perspective of interactive functions, the proportion of supporting external keyboard, split screen and multi-device collaboration is 11%, 54% and 49% respectively. Compared with the first half of the year, the proportion of sales supporting external keyboards decreased slightly, and the penetration of supporting split screen and multi-device collaboration increased by 6% and 3% respectively.
Outlook: China’s e-paper tablet market will grow by more than 30% in 2023
In 2022, the characteristics of China’s e-paper tablet market are: a hundred flowers bloom, smart office books gradually become the mainstream, and domestic brands take the lead.
It is worth noting that compared with international brands such as Kindle and Kobo, domestic brands have not yet produced products that can compete with them in small size models, and there is still much room for improvement in terms of display effect, front light uniformity, system response speed, endurance, appearance, durability, and influence.
Next, as China’s e-paper tablet market becomes the highland of direct competition for domestic brands, the release of new products is gradually deepened, and the quality control, battery life, software, screen and reading experience are significantly improved. It is expected that 2023 will still be a big year for sales. RUNTO predicts that in 2023, China’s e-paper tablet market will grow by at least 30% and the sales volume will reach 1.35 million units. In the further 3 to 5 years, the market will remain dynamic, with a compound growth rate of more than 20%.
The report “Summary and Outlook of Global E-Paper Industry Chain in 2022” to be released in the near future covers the market development of E-paper diaphragm, module, C-end hardware, B-end hardware and other links. Pay attention to the official account and get the latest information in time.