TCL will take over Sony's home entertainment division, including Bravia TV line

[Shawn Knight]

In a nutshell: Sony has agreed to effectively hand over control of its home entertainment business to China's TCL. The two companies have signed a memorandum of understanding to form a joint venture that will oversee Sony's home entertainment division, with Sony holding a 49 percent stake and TCL taking a controlling 51 percent share.

The new company will operate globally, we are told, and will be responsible for handling everything from product design and development to manufacturing, logistics, sales, and even customer service. The as yet unnamed venture will handle both televisions and home audio equipment, and is expected to carry on the Sony and Bravia names.

Sony brings decades of picture and audio expertise to the table, and will leverage its brand name and supply chain management skills. TCL, meanwhile, has spent years working on its own advanced display technology. The Chinese electronics maker also touted its global scale advantages, industrial footprint, end-to-end cost efficiency, and vertical supply chain strengths as positive contributions to the partnership.

The television industry is a curious outlier in the consumer electronics industry. Whereas most products tend to get more expensive as their tech matures, televisions have done the exact opposite. Over the past 25 years, TV prices have fallen faster than almost any other electronics product category. A recent look into why this is found several contributing factors including manufacturing breakthroughs, effects of scale, and intense competition with rivals.

Sony was once a major player in several consumer categories, but they have exited many of those markets in recent memory. In 2025 alone, Sony stopped producing Blu-ray media and discontinued its 8K TV line. The company also jettisoned its Vaio PC business in 2014 and sold its lithium-ion battery business to Murata Manufacturing in 2017.

Barring any unforeseen circumstances, the two companies expect to move closer to signing definitive, binding agreements by the end of March 2026. Pending regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions, the new venture expects to begin operations by April 2027.

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TCL will take over Sony's home entertainment division, including Bravia TV line

 

[themastergoose]

Interesting move. From my past experience TCL isn't at Sony's level in terms of picture quality or reliability/longevity. While's it's true from a panel perspective Sony these days are re-packaged Samsung or LG offerings, the switch to TCL will be interesting...

...I wonder if TCL will simply produce their TV's and phase out Sony's existing products but inherit their motion processor and crucially, price point in the market to make a huge margin?

 

[bviktor]

Yay, more Chinese dominance.

 

[Squid Surprise]

So now my TV’s spyware will report to China instead of Japan… hurray…

 

[DrSuess]

Interesting move. From my past experience TCL isn't at Sony's level in terms of picture quality or reliability/longevity. While's it's true from a panel perspective Sony these days are re-packaged Samsung or LG offerings, the switch to TCL will be interesting...

This generally comes down to the control/processing firmware on the TV. The more expensive sets have much better firmware.

 

[AlexIL]

Sony knows less and less people actually watch TVs. Getting rid of ageing fading out tech while it still worth something, wise move.

 

[Neatfeatguy]

I'm not a fan of TCL. They have cheap TVs, they really helped Roku boom with it being built in and all.....but holy crap, what a slow piece of junk their TVs are.

I probably shouldn't really complain too much, I did win a 50" TCL TV in a $20 raffle 10 years ago come this May. The TV itself had decent picture quality, but the apps on the TV were so slow that the TV would struggle to run closed captions or Netflix would take so long to load the system would hang and auto restart (would auto restart if it struggled with closed captions, too).

I started to believe that TCL just found the dumping ground for all of Intel's old Atom processors and used them, along with 512MB of RAM - just enough to let the TV and apps mostly function. The functionality of it just got worse and worse and time went on because apps became more demanding....

Even back when we first got the TV we had one of those small Roku sticks and that thing ran circles around the TV. Apps loaded without any issues, you could run closed captions without issues, it was just leaps and bounds better than the TV.

I really liked Sony back in the day, still have a 40" Bravia that has great picture and color and it just works because there is nothing "smart" about it. Shame that TCL is looking to pretty much take over Sony. I'll just know from here on out to avoid Sony as well.

 

[Aus spot]

Sony knows less and less people actually watch TVs. Getting rid of ageing fading out tech while it still worth something, wise move.

Don’t conflate TV the technology with TV shows.

There are more TV’s and other large display panels in peoples houses than ever before.

 

[SRB]

Sony knows less and less people actually watch TVs. Getting rid of ageing fading out tech while it still worth something, wise move.

While that's true, I'm still amazed at how many people digest their entertainment exclusively on a 5" screen. I'll stick with the TV, thank you.

Although Sony has worked harder than anyone else to monetize television, they still wound up with the most usable interface than the rest by far, even if that isn't saying much.

 

[p51d007]

Zenith, Motorola, Admiral, RCA were the huge television companies in the post WW2 era to the early 70's.
Then Sony, Panasonic, Sharp & a few others came along and pretty much took over the consumer television industry (USA) and the American brands disappeared.
How? CHEAP labor and in some cases superior devices. Now, most consumer electronics is coming from China, because of...CHEAP labor.
The labor isn't the only component. CEO's/labor/poor quality had a lot to do with it as well.
In non communist countries, most workers can start demanding higher wages and the cost to do business increases plus stockholders want higher returns on their investments. Thus, in America, a lot of things moved overseas, for cheaper labor. In China, it's hard for people to even THINK about asking for higher wages, which is why a lot of production of pretty much everything, shifted there in the 90's.

 

[yukka]

My 4K TVs have both been Bravias (xf90 and xl90). Both excellent and still going strong. I hope this doesn’t lead to a drop in Sony TV quality

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Don’t conflate TV the technology with TV shows.

There are more TV’s and other large display panels in peoples houses than ever before.

The general trend for TV sales has also been downward. Just like TV shows the usage of TVs falls dramatically with newer generations. Consoles help keep this up along with.home theater setups but it isn't a growing market.

My 4K TVs have both been Bravias (xf90 and xl90). Both excellent and still going strong. I hope this doesn’t lead to a drop in Sony TV quality

Spoiler alert: it will. They're TCL TVs now, with all the garbage quality that comes with.

 

[Aus spot]

The general trend for TV sales has also been downward. Just like TV shows the usage of TVs falls dramatically with newer generations. Consoles help keep this up along with.home theater setups but it isn't a growing market.

Where are you getting your data from? Every data source I’ve quickly looked at shows small gains. There have been some ups and downs, but trend has been upwards.

 

[Rapob]

TCL is just as good as Samsung or LG by now, in terms of quality. TCL is huge worldwide with own panel megafactories. Big player.

They just need OLED TVs instead of LCD only. This joint venture might be the start of this.

Sony make/made good TVs but they generelly overpriced for what you get and I own a A95K QD-OLED still which I plan to replace with a 77-83" QD-OLED or Tandem WOLED this year or next.

Don't really care which brand if design and image quality is good. I won't be using the remote and stock OS much anyway, as Apple TV 4K is my goto unit. TV will be off the internet.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Where are you getting your data from? Every data source I’ve quickly looked at shows small gains. There have been some ups and downs, but trend has been upwards.

In 2019 221 million TVs were sold. In 2025 that number was 208 million, which was a 3.7% increase over 2024 and the first increase after three years of shrinking sales. Go take a look at statista. The trend over the last half decade has been a decline in sales.

 

[Megalomaniac]

TCL got 100" TV now.,

 

[EvilRebar]

I'm curious about the branding and supply breakdown of this agreement.

Hopefully TCL won't control software or standardize everything around just enough computing power to run release software.

 

[axiomatic13]

Dear TCL, make a dumb TV with a top of the line OLED panel and I will buy two.

 

[airbornex]

This feels less like Sony giving up and more like admitting that the TV business is a brutal scale game now. Picture quality can only carry you so far when margins are razor-thin and factories matter more than prestige.

 

[Win7User]

All, I know is that the TLC made my flip phone, that gives me only ONE audio alert for a text message, or a voicemail! it's, not like I would continually pick up that damn phone to see if I have a text or voicemail. That's, ridiculous!! The, whole point of having an audio alert for text or voicemail, is so that you know you have a text message, or voicemail. There, is NO option to get this TLC flip phone to continue to audio alert for text messages, or voicemail? My, LG fliip phone 15 yrs prior to getting this TLC flip phone, would allow you select an audio reminder every two minutes, until you physically turn it off. Not, only that, my old LG flip phone, had a seperate volume control, for texts, ringer, and alarm clock!! The LG phone cost me $19!!! The, only reason I changed phones, is because T-Mobile and the rest, stop supporting 3g. So, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't purchase anything made by TLC!

 

[firesoul]

TCL is just as good as Samsung or LG by now, in terms of quality. TCL is huge worldwide with own panel megafactories. Big player.

They just need OLED TVs instead of LCD only. This joint venture might be the start of this.

Sony make/made good TVs but they generelly overpriced for what you get and I own a A95K QD-OLED still which I plan to replace with a 77-83" QD-OLED or Tandem WOLED this year or next.

Don't really care which brand if design and image quality is good. I won't be using the remote and stock OS much anyway, as Apple TV 4K is my goto unit. TV will be off the internet.

I seem to recall reading TCL is huge in the mini-LED panel making space, not just LCD. OLED is replaced by mini-LED in a lot of metrics.

 

[J Oelschl]

Sorry but I tried a TCL TV one time after having an LG fail at 3 years old. I figured I would give them a try after the "glowing reviews" flooding all the publications. The TCL only lasted a little over a year and the panel got a blue horizontal line right in the middle of the screen. The PQ on the TCL had the worst off viewing angle ever even when it worked. I will never buy a TCL anything again. I replaced it with a Sony and the difference was astonishing. The PQ is excellent as is the off viewing angles. I also got the 5 year extended warranty. It has already outlasted the TCL. The fact that SONY sold out saddens me greatly because now I will not consider one once TCL takes over. all the TV greats going away because of craptastic junk. Panasonic, Sony, Sharp, and Toshiba all succumbing. TVs used to last 10 years or more easily. Buy the extended warranty folks.

 

[Rapob]

I seem to recall reading TCL is huge in the mini-LED panel making space, not just LCD. OLED is replaced by mini-LED in a lot of metrics.

Mini LED is nothing but improved backlighting for LCD. Zonecontrolled to reduce the massive blooming issues with LCD but won't remove it.

Controlling the backlight tho, takes processing/power and time, meaning you will see input lag in most cases, making them bad for gaming. Most Mini LED TVs disables most of the zones in game/pc mode for this reason. Result? You get degraded image quality with massive amounts of blooming.

A Mini LED in game mode, is almost back to edge LIT LCD level of backlighing. Very bad in most cases, sadly it is needed to deliver good input latency.

LCD is LCD. LED is the backlight which is required for LCD to even work.

OLED is the future for high-end panels and don't need backlighting. Even TCL CSOT has OLED fabs. Looks into printable OLED etc.

OLED will reign supreme in the high-end space till Micro LED is ready for consumers in about 5-10 years, maybe. We will see. Nothing about LCD is high-end, it is the cheap and worse alternative. No high-end product should be using a LCD panel in 2026.

LCD has limited future, too many problems. It is panels made for low to mid-end. Both Samsung and LG stopped making LCD for a reason. Their fabs are all about OLED now. They sold or took their LCD fabs out of production. They are buying cheap 3rd party panels now.

All their high-end TVs pretty much use QD-OLED/WOLED now.

RGB Mini LED is the next imrprovement for LCD, but it is still just dated LCD tech with the same LCD issues; Smearing, blooming, bad uniformity, corner glow, bad viewing angles, bad contrast levels etc.

Problem with RGB mini LED is that price will be higher than OLED. More expensive to make and you will still see most of the LCD issues like smearing, low contrast, bad viewing angles etc.

 

[Rapob]

Sorry but I tried a TCL TV one time after having an LG fail at 3 years old. I figured I would give them a try after the "glowing reviews" flooding all the publications. The TCL only lasted a little over a year and the panel got a blue horizontal line right in the middle of the screen. The PQ on the TCL had the worst off viewing angle ever even when it worked. I will never buy a TCL anything again. I replaced it with a Sony and the difference was astonishing. The PQ is excellent as is the off viewing angles. I also got the 5 year extended warranty. It has already outlasted the TCL. The fact that SONY sold out saddens me greatly because now I will not consider one once TCL takes over. all the TV greats going away because of craptastic junk. Panasonic, Sony, Sharp, and Toshiba all succumbing. TVs used to last 10 years or more easily. Buy the extended warranty folks.

Let me guess, you bought a cheap TCL and the Sony was 2-3 times the price. It was probably even OLED which is how you got insane viewing angles. Sony has been / still is big on OLED.

OLED has FLAWLESS viewing angles as well.

No LCD TV has good viewing angles. When viewed off-center you will notice the shift.

VA is the only LCD panel you choose when buying a "high-end" LCD TV and VA has the worst viewing angles of any LCD type, or close. TN and VA is crap when it comes to viewing angles. IPS is better but IPS has shite contrast levels and you don't see TN used in TVs at all, unless you look in the extreme low-end department.

VA is used in high-end LCD TVs due to massively better contrast than IPS and this is how you get good image quality. If you always sit in the sweet spot anyway, viewing angles is not that important.

If you don't want an OLED TV = Get a TV with a VA panel. IPS will be shite for anything else than watching sports/news in daylight. IPS has horrible contrast levels.

If you want close to perfection, you need OLED and nothing LCD based will even come close overall. If you don't want OLED, LCD with VA is what you buy.

IPS is horrible tech for a TV. You only buy low-end stuff like this for the kids, meeting rooms etc. IPS is close to garbage for a living room TV where you will enjoy movies, series and want peak immersion. OLED rules supreme here but VA can be decent too. IPS won't do and will look bad.

 

[Todd Sauve]

Zenith, Motorola, Admiral, RCA were the huge television companies in the post WW2 era to the early 70's.
Then Sony, Panasonic, Sharp & a few others came along and pretty much took over the consumer television industry (USA) and the American brands disappeared.
How? CHEAP labor and in some cases superior devices. Now, most consumer electronics is coming from China, because of...CHEAP labor.
The labor isn't the only component. CEO's/labor/poor quality had a lot to do with it as well.
In non communist countries, most workers can start demanding higher wages and the cost to do business increases plus stockholders want higher returns on their investments. Thus, in America, a lot of things moved overseas, for cheaper labor. In China, it's hard for people to even THINK about asking for higher wages, which is why a lot of production of pretty much everything, shifted there in the 90's.

I saw a TV show a long time ago, on PBS I think, that explained during Richard Nixon's administrations the US agreed to let Japan have the TV industry in exchange for geopolitical support during that cold war period.