Summary: The rise of Chinese brands is a heroic struggle from "price killers" to "technology hunters", and finally becoming "track setters". The collaboration between Sony and TCL has added another significant chapter to this history.
Fenghuang Technology, Production
Author｜Phoebe
Editor｜Dong Yuqing
A Sony TV priced at ten thousand yuan was once the "symbol of prestige" for Chinese families. Now, this Japanese giant has handed over the fate of its home entertainment business to a Chinese company.
On the evening of January 20, 2026, a major announcement hit the consumer electronics industry. TCL Electronics suddenly announced in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that it had signed a letter of intent with Sony Company, planning to establish a joint venture to take over Sony's home entertainment business. Globally, this new company will operate television and home audio businesses in an integrated manner.
The core of Sony's cooperation with TCL - the home entertainment business - refers to the entire product line that Sony has always claimed to bring cinema-level audio-visual experiences into homes. According to the brand integration strategy since 2024, this business has been unified under the "BRAVIA" brand within Sony, covering the complete ecosystem from display, audio to content services.
Although the partnership involves an entire set of deeply integrated software and hardware home entertainment systems, the TV is undoubtedly the most important part.
It is worth noting that the equity structure of the joint venture is 51% owned by TCL and 49% by Sony. This means that the future of the Sony TVs once revered by Chinese consumers will be led by a Chinese company.
Has Sony's magic become a thing of the past?
In the 1980s and 1990s, Japanese TV manufacturers enjoyed a golden period. Brands like Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba, and Sharp became synonymous with quality and premium, and Japanese TVs were the "symbol of prestige" for countless Chinese families.
During Japan's golden era of TV technology, Sony's Trinitron technology almost became the standard for color TV picture quality. In 1996, Sony (China) Co., Ltd. was officially established in Beijing, marking the Japanese electronics giant's deep investment in the Chinese market.
At that time, a 29-inch Sony Trinitron TV sold for more than ten thousand yuan in the Chinese market, equivalent to several years' salary for ordinary workers, yet still in high demand.
Sony products were once a symbol of "quality": from the Trinitron technology in cathode ray tubes to the precision mechanics of the Walkman, Japanese manufacturing built an almost unshakable technical worship in consumers' minds. This brand premium allowed Sony to enjoy a decade-long period of benefits in the Chinese market, even when prices were far higher than domestic TVs, there were still many loyal followers.
However, the crisis for Japanese electronics manufacturers also quietly emerged during the boom period. Around the year 2000, Chinese local TV brands such as TCL, Hisense, and Changhong began to rise, using their low-cost labor advantages to launch price wars, gradually eroding the market share of Japanese brands.
In 2005, when Hisense announced the successful development of China's self-owned intellectual property digital video processing chip "Xinxin," Japanese manufacturers may not have realized that not only had they lost their cost advantage, but their former strong technological barriers were also being slowly worn away.
The real turning point came in the 2010s. With the popularity of smartphones and tablets, the central position of television in family entertainment began to waver. Japanese electronics manufacturers fell into strategic confusion - should they stick to the high-end market or descend to participate in price competition?
Sony chose the former, continuing to maintain its high-end positioning and "craftsmanship spirit." However, the market logic had subtly changed; consumers no longer wanted to pay high fees just for brand premiums, but instead focused more on cost-effectiveness and innovative features.
In November 2025, the official WeChat account of Sony Xperia entered a deregistration freeze state, marking the end of Sony phones in the Chinese market. Combined with three months earlier, the use of Sony phone's Chinese website domain stopped, these actions formally declared the complete withdrawal of Sony phones from the Chinese market, and its market share had already dropped to negligible levels.
Sony's television business also faced similar difficulties. Although Sony's XR cognitive chip calibration capabilities are still recognized in professional fields, in the eyes of consumers who once cried "Sony is great," the price tags of Sony could no longer match the value it provided. At the end of 2025, multiple Sony TV models were concentratedly complained about "broken after warranty" on various consumer complaint platforms, with silent or motherboard failures, and the official response was slow, further eroding the trust foundation of its high-end brand.
When Chinese brands offer similar or better experiences with more advanced technology and lower prices, Sony's moat is rapidly drying up. This decline is not unique to Sony. The entire Japanese consumer electronics industry faces similar challenges. Sharp was sold to Hon Hai, Toshiba has restructured multiple times, and Panasonic has reduced its business lines... The golden age of the Japanese electronics empire has become a thing of the past.
While Sony was still struggling to maintain its high-end brand image, its former followers had already used a completely different strategy to rewrite the rules of the game.
Who Needs Whom Between Sony and TCL
The essence of this collaboration is to use "Chinese efficiency" to transform and streamline Sony's "Japanese ecosystem."
The plan for the new company also clearly states this: it will simultaneously utilize "Sony's high-quality picture and audio technology, brand value," as well as "TCL's advanced display technology, global scale advantages, vertical supply chain, and end-to-end cost efficiency."
In other words, Sony provides brand glow and technological heritage, while TCL provides the blood needed for these heritage to survive in today's market - efficient manufacturing, controllable costs, and broad channels.
Changing the controlling shares also means that in the future joint venture, TCL will have the final decision-making power. Sony, the Japanese giant that once defined high-end consumer electronics, has officially handed over the leadership of its home entertainment business to its Chinese partner.
This collaboration is not a simple technology transfer or brand licensing, but a deep industrial integration. According to the memorandum content, the joint venture planned by both parties will conduct integrated business operations including televisions and home audio products globally. This means that from product design, R&D, manufacturing to sales, all stages will be dominated by the joint venture.
For Sony, retaining 49% of the shares allows it to continue participating in the business, sharing potential future profits, while leveraging TCL's manufacturing capabilities and supply chain advantages to reduce costs. For TCL, holding 51% ensures its control over the joint venture, while gaining Sony's brand authorization and technical accumulation.
This collaboration model reflects profound changes occurring in the global consumer electronics industry. Traditional vertical integration models are being replaced by more flexible collaborative networks. Companies no longer pursue absolute control in all links, but focus on their most skilled areas, complementing their shortcomings through collaboration.
Looking back at this industry substitution spanning thirty years, there is a thought-provoking "route discrepancy." Sony's decline stems precisely from its strongest "vertical integration" model - full control from film content, professional equipment to consumer terminals, which was a barrier in the analog era, but in the digital era may become a burden due to heavy system weight.
In contrast, TCL's success is also based on "vertical integration," but focusing on the integration of upstream panels (Huaxing Photoelectric) and complete machine manufacturing, bringing extremely high cost control and technical implementation efficiency.
This joint venture seems to be the handover of two "vertical integration" models: Sony hands over the brand and some technological legacy, while TCL injects the "efficiency blood" needed for its legacy to survive in today's market.
Looking deeper, this collaboration symbolizes the shift of power in the global consumer electronics industry. Former Japanese electronic giants, facing the comprehensive rise of Chinese brands, have had to adjust their strategies, maintaining market presence through cooperation rather than competition.
For Sony, this is more like a "sacrificed piece" under strategic focus. As early as 2014, Sony, which was deeply in loss, had split its TV business into an independent subsidiary, which was interpreted by the outside world as "waiting for a good price." Ten years later, the prediction came true.
Globally, in the first three quarters of 2025, Sony's TV shipments were only 2.6 million units, ranking tenth, having significantly lagged behind Chinese brands such as TCL, Hisense, and Xiaomi. The TV business has been classified as "other businesses" in the financial report, in a loss or marginal profit state. Sony's mobile phone business has also officially exited China in 2025, and the group resources are now focused on image sensors, games, and music, which are more profitable segments. It has become a clear strategic choice to divest non-core hardware businesses that continue to lose money.
Sony's senior management has clearly bet the company's future on the "creative entertainment vision," where its game, music, film, and image sensor businesses contribute mainly to profits and are highly anticipated. Divesting the continuously bleeding and strategically declining home entertainment hardware business allows Sony to be lighter and focus more on content and core technologies.
In the future, this "centralized control and external participation" collaboration model may become the norm in more industries. As Chinese companies comprehensively rise in technology, manufacturing, and markets, the traditional industrial division pattern is being redefined.
When Chinese brands are no longer merely the synonym for "cost-effectiveness," and show comprehensive competitiveness in technological innovation and global operations, Sony's choice may not be seen as a retreat, but rather finding its most suitable ecological position in the new era.
Future, we may see more similar collaborations: Western brands provide brand heritage and technological accumulation, while Chinese companies provide manufacturing capabilities, innovation speed, and market sensibility - this new industrial division may redefine the competitive landscape of the global consumer electronics industry.
The Continuous Upset of Made-in-China
In the spring of 1996, a war without smoke was brewing in the Chinese TV market. On March 26, Changhong suddenly announced that all its color TVs would be reduced in price, with a discount of 18% to 30%. This so-called "Black March" completely rewrote the landscape of the Chinese TV industry.
Domestic brands bravely challenged foreign brands. Kangao, TCL, and Panda quickly followed the price cuts, forming a collective attack by the domestic alliance. The result surprised everyone: by the end of 1996, the domestic color TV market share surged to 71.1%, and the advantage of Japanese manufacturers in the Chinese market was almost eliminated.
However, the price war was only the first step for Chinese brands to survive. True upset started with the breakthrough of core technologies.
On June 26, 2005, Hisense launched China's first self-owned intellectual property digital video processing chip "Xinxin" in Beijing. Then Chairman Zhou Housheng held that small chip and announced the end of the "no-chip era" in China's color TV industry. He frankly said, "Without our own chips, we will always be a second-rate manufacturer." The birth of this "Chinese Chip" marked the beginning of the Chinese TV industry breaking free from the shackles of technological dependence.
The real strategic turning point occurred in 2009. Under the shadow of the global financial crisis, TCL made a risky decision: invest 24.5 billion yuan to build an 8.5th generation liquid crystal panel production line for Huaxing Photoelectric. Chairman Li Dongsheng firmly opposed: "We must enter the panel industry, otherwise we will always be controlled by others." This decision broke the industrial dilemma of "lack of chips and screens" in China and laid a solid foundation for TCL's future competition in the global market.
In 2014, Hisense opened a new track in display technology, launching the world's first 100-inch laser TV. This innovation demonstrated that Chinese brands were no longer satisfied with following technology but began to attempt to define the direction of future display technology.
Technological breakthroughs quickly translated into market advantages. After ten years, Chinese brands have formed a dominant advantage in the global TV market.
Data shows that in the first three quarters of 2025, TCL's global TV shipments reached 20.8 million units, an increase of 4.1%. Among them, Mini LED TVs became the biggest highlight, with global shipments reaching 2.24 million units, an increase of 153.3% year-on-year. Hisense also performed well, ranking first in brand shipments in the Chinese TV market in 2025, and continuously expanding in the global market.
Chinese TV brands have shifted from participants in price wars to pioneers of technological innovation.
At the 2026 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the innovative strength of Chinese brands was fully demonstrated. Hisense launched RGB MiniLED evo technology, introducing a fourth "cyan" LED light source on the basis of the traditional three-color backlight structure, raising the color gamut to a new height. TCL showcased an旗舰 product with over 20,000 backlight zones, with peak brightness reaching 10,000 nits, setting a new industry standard.
Chinese brands' technological breakthroughs directly rewrote the global industrial landscape. In 2025, the combined global TV shipment share of the three Chinese brands - TCL, Hisense, and Xiaomi - reached 31.3%, surpassing the 28.4% share of South Korean Samsung and LG for the first time. Chinese companies have evolved from technological followers to key participants in the global display technology evolution standards.
Beneath this upset lies the continuous investment in R&D by Chinese companies and their keen understanding of consumer needs. While Japanese companies were still sticking to the "technology-first" philosophy, Chinese companies had learned how to combine technological innovation with market acceptance, creating products that have leading technology and meet mass consumption affordability.
The rise of Chinese brands is a heroic struggle from "price killers" to "technology hunters," and finally becoming "track setters." And the collaboration between Sony and TCL has added another significant chapter to this history.
Original: toutiao.com/article/7597427709660201515/
Statement: This article represents the views of the author.