According to reports from Taiwan, Ennostar sold off its stake in microLED developer PlayNitride . The company sold the common shares in several deals on the open market, and the total shares value reached NT$ 450 million, or around $14.7 million USD.
Ennostar still holds a large 7.76% stake (9.1 million shares, worth around NT$1.8 billion) via its Epistar Subsidiary. The company said it sold the shares mainly to improve its financial structure, as its losses are increasing due to weak customer demand, inventory adjustments and unfavorable exchange rates. The company is changing its priorities and aim to focus on two core technologies, optical communications and industrial sensing going forward, which may also explain why it reduced its stake in PlayNitirde.
Ennostar recently announced a restructure to merge Epistar and Lextar into a single company. Earlier in 2025, the company said that that it has achieved several significant breakthroughs in its microLED technology - with improvement to device efficiency, reduction in chip sizes, and mass transfer process progress.
Earlier this year the company said it believes that microLEDs will also play an important role in optical communication, especially for AI datacenters. This could mean that it will pivot its microLED development into that direction, following today's report.
PlayNitride recently announced disappointing financial results for Q2 2025, with revenues down around 37% from last year. PlayNitride is building a complete supply chain for microLED production, from epiwafer production through chip processing, transfer process and more. In 2023 AUO announced a $21.5 million agreement with PlayNitride to build a 6-inch microLED production line at AUO's Longtan factory. Earlier in 2023, PlayNitride said that it is increasing its production volume to 10,000 6" wafers per month.
PlayNitride is developing a wide range of displays: tiled large-area displays (PixeLED Matrix), wearable panels, microdisplays, transparent displays, and more. In 2022, PlayNitride started to sample microLED panels for over 5 potential automotive customers.
