Sony to spin out its TV and audio unit, TCL to become the major shareholder

Sony announced today that it plans to spin-out its TV and home audio business to a separate entity. Sony has partnered with China-based TCL that will hold a 51% stake (Sony holds the rest of the company). The new company will continue to use the Sony and Bravia brands.

Sony said that the new JV will be a global company, and will handle the full process from product development and design to manufacturing, sales, logistics, and customer service for its TV and audio products.

The statement also says that the new company will utilize TCL's advanced display technology. This is an interesting move by TCL that will now be able to offer its display panels inside one of the world's leading TV brands. As TCL's CSOT moves to construct its large-area mass production inkjet printing OLED line, it is likely that the company sees this as an opportunity to lock-in a leading customer for its next-generation OLED TV panels. Read more below to learn how some of that technology originated from Sony back in 2013 (!), and check out our recent interview with two TCL CSOT executives discussing the company's OLED plans and capabilities.

Sony was one of the pioneer of OLED TVs, and back in 2007 it launched the iconic 11" 960x540 XEL‑1 "OLED TV", produced at its own limited pilot AMOLED line. The company continued to develop OLED TV technologies, and was planning larger models, but later scrapped these plans. In 2012, Sony announced a JV with Panasonic, to develop OLED TVs using inkjet printing, and even showed 56" 4K prototypes in 2013 - but these never saw the light of day, and the JV was cancelled. The IP ended up at JOLED, and after that JV was disbanded - the equipment and know how were acquired by TCL - which is now buying control of Sony's TV business!