It’s Official: TCL Will Make Sony’s Future TVs In A New Joint Venture
Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared on TechRadar.
Sony and TCL have announced that they’re officially going ahead with building a new joint venture to take over Sony’s TV business – something they announced plans for earlier in the year. At that time, it was still in the proposal stage, but now the agreement has been signed.
The new joint venture is owned 49% by Sony and 51% by TCL, and will be called Bravia, Inc. A Sony representative told TechRadar that the TVs will still be badged as Sony Bravia models, and despite TCL being the larger owner of Bravia, Inc, the new company will be headquartered in Sony’s Osaki office in Tokyo.
The Sony representative said: “BRAVIA Inc. brings together Sony’s high-quality picture and sound technology, premium brand value, and operational expertise, alongside TCL’s advanced display technology, global scale, manufacturing footprint, end-to-end cost efficiency, and vertically integrated supply-chain capabilities.”
Sony veteran Kazuo Kii will be the CEO of the new venture, and there will be a board of four members overseeing it, with two from Sony and two from TCL.
The new venture won’t just cover Sony’s much-loved TV business, but also its legendary home theater projectors, which are generally considered to be about as good as these things go – and it will include Sony’s business displays. A Sony representative said: “BRAVIA Inc. will succeed Sony’s home entertainment business, and includes product development and design, manufacturing, sales and logistics, and customer service for products such as consumer TVs (BRAVIA), B2B Flat Panel Displays (B2B BRAVIA), B2B LED Displays, projectors, and home audio equipment such as home theater systems and audio components.”
The new joint venture is supposed to start operations in April 2027, which is interesting – we’re expecting Sony to announce more TVs in the coming months, including its first ‘True RGB’ TV (after a couple of years of showing off prototypes to us).
Uncertainty over future tech
Sony’s OLED TVs are much beloved by the AV community because of the company’s commitment to accuracy – Sony makes reference monitors used in video productions for ‘perfect’ imaging, and it tries to make its TVs match as closely as possible. This has led to the company winning TV ‘shootouts’ where accuracy is the most important element.
But TCL has no love for OLED in its TVs. The company doesn’t use the technology at all (though its display development arm, TCL CSOT, is a leader in developing next-gen inkjet-printed OLED, but the company has told me we’re years away from seeing that in TVs), and is all-in on mini-LED.
Sony’s expected launch of an RGB TV is interesting in the context of the merger, because TCL is also going in deep on RGB-backlit TVs. However, TCL actually doesn’t see this technology as its flagship screen option currently – the TCL X11L uses a technology the company is calling SQD mini-LED instead, to maximize brightness and dimming zone counts – and I expect that Sony very much will make the technology its best option.
What will this mean for Sony’s more elite sets, then? Who knows, the representatives of the two companies will have to have that out.
Where I expect to see the biggest differences is in the more affordable models. Sony’s TVs have struggled to deliver good value in the mid-range and budget TV brackets, and TCL knows exactly how to deliver this. I wouldn’t be surprised if the new joint venture is quiet about high-end models at first, but comes in hard with a lot more affordable options with Sony branding (and, hopefully, image processing) and TCL panels.
About the Author
Matt Bolton is TechRadar’s Managing Editor for Entertainment, meaning he’s in charge of persuading our team of writers and reviewers to watch the latest TV shows and movies on gorgeous TVs and listen to fantastic speakers and headphones. It’s a tough task, as you can imagine. Matt has over a decade of experience in tech publishing and previously ran the TV & audio coverage for our colleagues at T3.com, and before that, he edited T3 magazine. During his career, he’s also contributed to places as varied as Creative Bloq, PC Gamer, PetsRadar, MacLife, and Edge. TV and movie nerdism is his speciality, and he goes to the cinema three times a week. He’s always happy to explain the virtues of Dolby Vision over a drink, but he might need to use props, like he’s explaining the offside rule.
See also: The ‘Dream OLED’ TV Tech Upgrade May Finally Be On The Way