Victory Lap
Chinese brands are not known for their advertising subtlety, adding adjectives such as glorious, triumphant, and industry-leading to announcements of accomplishments or industry metrics. With the end of the Chinese 11/11 shopping holiday now upon us, a number of Chinese brands have begun to offer up results. In a ‘super-burning’ report, Chinese brand TCL (000100.CH) has indicated that it exceeded 2.187b yuan ($342.7m US), a 36.7% increase over 2020 sales, a new record high, although it does not qualify whether this was for an extended period or for a single day total.
That said, TCL notes that an outstanding product this year was its Mini-LED QD TVs, for which it describes itself as the QD/Mini-LED product leader, Mini-LED backlight leader, the world’s leader in QLED technology, and the top ‘comprehend the AI chip’, which we take to mean the use of AI in Mini-LED displays. They go further in noting that they have annual production capacity for 10m units, 470 related patents, and are the sales leader (QD/Mini-LED) in North America, Europe, and China. They also specify that their Mini-LED backlights are not PCB based but are deposited directly on glass, a distinct cost advantage, and are actively driven, rather than the passive drivers used by some. Not leaving out that 9 out of every 10 Mini-LED TVs that have been sold (goes back to 2018) have been TCL’s, the company rarely misses an opportunity to mention that it has been researching and producing Mini-LED TVs for considerably longer than both Samsung and LG (066570.KS), who are both new entrants to the product line and have relatively weak Mini-LED manufacturing capabilities, citing 2020 statistics, but do not cite 2021 metrics, given both TV giant’s entry into the Mini-LED/QD market earlier this year.
We certainly give TCL credit for moving ahead with Mini-LED TVs years before others were in production and also give them credit for being the price leaders, as we have noted previously, but 2018 through 2020 were the easy years, where the only competition was from other TV technologies. While both Samsung and LG, along with Sony (SNE), are new to the market this year, we expect the competition to increase as all three build out their supply chains and ramp production. This is the right year for TCL to celebrate its success with Mini-LED/QD TV as next year there will be new players and lots of marketing from TV brands. Take the victory lap.
That said, TCL notes that an outstanding product this year was its Mini-LED QD TVs, for which it describes itself as the QD/Mini-LED product leader, Mini-LED backlight leader, the world’s leader in QLED technology, and the top ‘comprehend the AI chip’, which we take to mean the use of AI in Mini-LED displays. They go further in noting that they have annual production capacity for 10m units, 470 related patents, and are the sales leader (QD/Mini-LED) in North America, Europe, and China. They also specify that their Mini-LED backlights are not PCB based but are deposited directly on glass, a distinct cost advantage, and are actively driven, rather than the passive drivers used by some. Not leaving out that 9 out of every 10 Mini-LED TVs that have been sold (goes back to 2018) have been TCL’s, the company rarely misses an opportunity to mention that it has been researching and producing Mini-LED TVs for considerably longer than both Samsung and LG (066570.KS), who are both new entrants to the product line and have relatively weak Mini-LED manufacturing capabilities, citing 2020 statistics, but do not cite 2021 metrics, given both TV giant’s entry into the Mini-LED/QD market earlier this year.
We certainly give TCL credit for moving ahead with Mini-LED TVs years before others were in production and also give them credit for being the price leaders, as we have noted previously, but 2018 through 2020 were the easy years, where the only competition was from other TV technologies. While both Samsung and LG, along with Sony (SNE), are new to the market this year, we expect the competition to increase as all three build out their supply chains and ramp production. This is the right year for TCL to celebrate its success with Mini-LED/QD TV as next year there will be new players and lots of marketing from TV brands. Take the victory lap.
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