History
The company was founded in 1981 and incorporated in 1985 as TCL Telecommunication Equipment Co Ltd. It began manufacturing consumer electronics for the Chinese market during the 1980s, and began to sell overseas in the 2000s. Though a state-owned enterprise, TCL was established as a joint venture with several Hong Kong-based investors.
In July 2003, TCL chairman Li Dongsheng formally announced a 'Dragon and Tiger Plan' to establish two competitive TCL businesses in global markets ("Dragons") and three leading businesses inside China ("Tigers"). In November 2003, TCL and Thomson SA of France announced the creation of a joint venture to produce televisions and DVD players worldwide. TCL took a 67 percent stake in the joint venture, with Thomson SA holding the rest of the shares, and it was agreed that televisions made by TCL-Thomson would be marketed under the TCL brand in Asia and the Thomson and RCA brands in Europe and North America. In April 2004, TCL and Alcatel announced the creation of a mobile phone manufacturing joint venture: Alcatel Mobile Phones. TCL injected 55 million euros in the venture in return for a 55 per cent shareholding. In May 2005 TCL announced that its Hong Kong-listed unit would acquire Alcatel's 45 per cent stake in their mobile-phone joint venture for consideration of HK$63.34 million ($8.1 million) worth of TCL Communication shares.
In June 2007 TCL announced that its mobile phone division planned to cease using the Alcatel brand and switch entirely to the TCL brand within five years. In April 2008 Samsung Electronics announced that it would be outsourcing the production of some LCD TV modules to TCL. In July 2008 TCL announced that it planned to raise 1.7 billion yuan ($249 million) via a share placement on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange to fund the construction of two production lines for LCD televisions; one for screens of up to 42 inches, and the other for screens of up to 56 inches. TCL sold a total of 4.18 million LCD TV sets in 2008, more than triple the number during 2007. In January 2009 TCL announced plans to double its LCD TV production capacity to 10 million units by the end of 2009. In November 2009, TCL announced that it had formed a joint-venture with the Shenzhen government to construct an 8.5-generation thin film transistor-liquid crystal display production facility in the city at a cost of $3.9 billion. In March 2010, TCL Multimedia raised HK$525 million through the sale of shares on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, in order to fund the development of its LCD and LED businesses and to generate working capital. In May 2011 TCL launched the China Smart Multimedia Terminal Technology Association in partnership with Hisense Electric Co. and Sichuan Changhong Electric Co., with the aim of helping to establish industry standards for smart televisions.
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