is a senior reviewer covering TVs and audio. He has over 20 years experience in AV, and has previously been on staff at Digital Trends and Reviewed.
I’m not sure anyone saw this news coming, but the TV landscape as we know it could change considerably over the next year or two. Sony, the storied Japanese TV brand, has announced that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with its Chinese competitor TCL. This potential partnership — with TCL set to hold a 51 percent stake and Sony 49 percent — has prompted speculation across the internet and I’m sure many meetings at a couple of other TV companies in South Korea.
Before we get too apocalyptic and proclaim the end of Sony TVs, it’s important to understand that this isn’t a done deal. The memorandum of understanding indicates that the two companies are in discussions to potentially establish a partnership. There’s still a couple of months before any binding agreements will be drawn up, and then there will need to be regulatory approvals made of those agreements. So there’s still a chance everything could fall apart and nothing comes of yesterday’s announcement. Even if we do hear of a binding contract by the end of March, the new company won’t be fully in effect until April of next year, meaning we likely won’t see any physical products until late in 2027.
As of today, Sony already relies on different manufacturing partners to create its TV lineup. While display panel manufacturers never reveal who they sell panels to, Sony is likely already using panels for its LCD TVs from TCL China Star Optoelectronics Technology (CSOT), in addition to OLED panels from LG Display and Samsung Display. With this deal, a relationship between Sony and TCL CSOT LCD panels is guaranteed (although I doubt this would affect CSOT selling panels to other manufacturers). And with TCL CSOT building a new OLED facility, there’s a potential future in which Sony OLEDs will also get panels from TCL. Although I should point out that we’re not sure yet if the new facility will have the ability to make TV-sized OLED panels, at least to start.
So what does Sony get out of this deal? For one, it gets access to the production capabilities of TCL. The Chinese company has long promoted the fact that it controls the whole chain of its TV manufacturing process, allowing it to more easily dictate technological development and pricing. If we consider the X11L, it has two important improvements to blue mini-LED tech: newly reformulated quantum dots and an improved color filter. Other companies that use quantum dots could purchase the new QDs and implement them.
But without a new color filter, a TV can’t fully take advantage of the new quantum dots. And since color filters are incorporated into the mother glass during manufacturing, changing a color filter involves stopping panel production to update machinery. It’s a big investment for another panel manufacturer to do that for one of its TV manufacturing customers. That’s where TCL has an advantage with its control over the end-to-end production of TVs. The other huge benefit to controlling production at that level is being able to keep overall costs down. With this potential partnership, Sony gains access to that manufacturing infrastructure.
For TCL, it gets majority control over the production of Sony TVs, but also access to the technology within those TVs. What makes a Sony TV a Sony TV isn’t the way that it’s put together, but its SoC (System on a Chip) and picture processing capabilities. Sony has long been the leader in picture processing, setting its TV performance apart from competitors — the Bravia 8 II is special because of the processing and not because of the QD-OLED panel from (presumably) Samsung Display.
Ultimately for those of us considering the purchase of a Sony TV, the combination of TCL’s manufacturing pipeline and Sony’s excellent picture processing could lead to even better Sony Bravia TVs at more accessible prices.
It would take a lot for Sony to completely step aside and allow another company to slap its name on an inferior product
There’s some concern from fans that this could lead to a Sharp, Toshiba, or Pioneer situation where the names are licensed and the TVs produced are a shell of what the brands used to represent. I don’t see this happening with Sony. While the electronics side of the business hasn’t been as strong as in the past, Sony — and Bravia — is still a storied brand. It would take a lot for Sony to completely step aside and allow another company to slap its name on an inferior product. And based on TCL’s growth and technological improvements over the past few years, and the shrinking gap between premium and midrange TVs, I don’t expect Sony TVs will suffer from a partnership with TCL.
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