In the market environment of diversified development of smart terminals, although the television industry is often regarded as a traditional sector with sluggish growth, there are still outstanding performers.
Recently, the Hong Kong-listed company TCL Electronics (01070) released its 2024 performance report, achieving revenue of HKD 99.32 billion in the year, a year-on-year increase of 25.7%; after-tax profit reached HKD 1.85 billion, a year-on-year increase of 123.6%; adjusted net profit attributable to shareholders was HKD 1.61 billion, doubling year-on-year.
Compared to the global television industry's moderate year-on-year shipment growth of 3.7% in 2024, TCL's global shipment growth rate of 14.8% not only is nearly four times higher than the industry average but also sets a new historical peak, with global shipments reaching 29 million units, ranking among the top two globally.
This series of data not only breaks the stereotype of the industry's &#34;low growth&#34; but also reflects TCL Electronics' successful systematic practice of deeply exploring the value of mid-to-high-end products, enhancing global brand premium capabilities, and optimizing operational efficiency, setting a successful example for peers.
<h2>Industrial Pattern Reconstruction Driven by Display Technology Upgrades</h2>
Science and technology are the primary productive forces, and mastering core technology is the key to unlocking the mid-to-high-end market. TCL Electronics has built technological barriers and optimized product structure, abandoning the traditional path of gaining market share through low prices. In 2024, the explosive growth of its large-size and Mini LED televisions validated the effectiveness of this strategy.
Looking back at the seventy-year development history of the global color TV industry, technological innovation has always been the core variable reshaping the market pattern. From CRT cathode ray tubes to LCD liquid crystal displays, from plasma to OLED, and now to Mini LED technology, each breakthrough in display technology has been accompanied by a change in industry leadership.
According to data from Zhongyikang's all-channel retail, the industry retail volume of Mini LED televisions in the domestic market soared to 4.43 million units in 2024, with a penetration rate of 13.6%, directly increasing by 10.7 percentage points compared to 2023. The ultimate audiovisual experience that Mini LED televisions bring to consumers on large screens is an important factor in gaining consumer favor. Among them, TCL Electronics is one of the key players driving the rapid penetration of Mini LED televisions.
According to TCL Electronics' sales data, the shipment growth rate of TCL Mini LED televisions in the domestic market reached 264.7%, and it has held the champion position in the domestic Mini LED television retail market for several consecutive years. Notably, in 2024, TCL Mini LED televisions' global shipments exceeded 1.7 million units, a year-on-year increase of 194.5%, with a market share of 28.8%, ranking first globally.
The successful combination of the &#34;mid-to-high-end + large-screen&#34; strategy and the leading layout of Mini LED technology has driven the rapid growth of TCL Electronics' large-size display business. In 2024, TCL Electronics' large-size display business grew by 23.6% year-on-year to HKD 60.11 billion, with domestic market revenue reaching HKD 19.05 billion, a year-on-year increase of 18.9%.
It is worth noting that the mid-to-high-end sector of the television industry has long been dominated by Japanese and Korean companies. In the current wave of Mini LED technology, TCL Electronics' breakthrough is closely related to its &#34;forward-looking technology research and development - capacity landing - cost optimization.&#34;
From a technical perspective, according to Zhitong Finance APP, TCL Electronics began researching Mini LED technology as early as 2016, ahead of the industry's mainstream layout by 3-5 years. In 2019, TCL Electronics launched the world's first Mini LED television and achieved mass production, subsequently releasing iterative Mini LED television products each year to enrich its product matrix and further meet the needs of different consumer groups. This brings to light its foresight in firmly implementing the &#34;TCL + Thunderbird&#34; dual-brand strategy.
The &#34;TCL + Thunderbird&#34; dual-brand strategy of TCL Electronics is essentially a precise disassembly of consumer demand. The TCL brand targets family consumers who pursue ultimate audio-visual quality and lifestyle experiences, while the Thunderbird brand focuses more on young consumers who love gaming and seek extreme cost-performance ratios. When television sizes break through a critical point, they are no longer &#34;home appliances,&#34; but rather &#34;infrastructure for family spaces&#34;—high-end does not merely mean price increases but stratification; the dual-brand approach is not simply a &#34;high-low pairing,&#34; but a deep adaptation to the needs of different user groups.
In terms of industry, the company achieves a positive cycle of &#34;R&amp;D - mass production - cost&#34; to quickly convert laboratory results into market advantages. While peers are still negotiating production capacity with panel manufacturers, TCL Electronics has already been able to adjust production plans according to cycles.
Taking its latest released Wanxiang zoning technology as an example, it deeply decouples every specific link in the imaging display of Mini LED televisions: from the light emitted by the light-emitting chip to the final projection on the screen. It optimizes the details and difficulties that affect picture quality in materials, processes, designs, algorithms, and other aspects, using systems engineering philosophy to solve problems from the ground up.
This is precisely the point that TCL Electronics is most easily underestimated by the outside world. Many people tend to attribute its current success in the Mini LED television market to its early entry advantage over peers, overlooking the internal engine that drives this company steadily forward—perception of changing tides and proactive planning.
This &#34;technical depth + manufacturing flexibility + demand insight&#34; trinity model is breaking through the zero-sum game of traditional price competition, providing a replicable paradigm for the transformation and upgrading of the consumer electronics industry. As display technology enters the &#34;micro-innovation&#34; era, systematic innovation capabilities may replace single technical parameters, becoming a new benchmark for determining market competition patterns.
<h2>From &#34;Made in China&#34; to &#34;Global Roots,&#34; Operating with Extreme Efficiency</h2>
In today's &#34;de-globalization&#34; era, localization capability is crucial. Unlike the &#34;hardware involution&#34; of other manufacturers, TCL Electronics' globalization resembles a systematic war—shifting from past price battles to a comprehensive capability competition of &#34;technical depth + global operations.&#34; By establishing core supply chains in different regions around the world, it transforms control over the industrial chain into &#34;operating capability pricing power.&#34;
In terms of production capacity and supply chain, TCL Electronics has established production bases globally, with bases in Vietnam and Mexico serving North America and the Asia-Pacific region, while Poland, Brazil, and Pakistan serve Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa, achieving agile and quick delivery while reducing tariff expenditures
At the same time, TCL Electronics has made significant adjustments to its organizational structure in marketing and channel management, dividing the global market into six major marketing headquarters: China, North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and the Middle East and Africa. By hiring local talent, TCL aims to better align regional organizational management and precise marketing with local markets.
For instance, in the developed markets of Europe and North America, TCL Electronics positions its market development in high-end branding. While further expanding high-end channels, it aims to establish a high-end brand image through precise marketing and gradually capture consumer mindshare. In emerging markets such as Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa, where the market is more fragmented and there is significant room for market share growth, TCL focuses on a &#34;one country, one policy&#34; approach, gradually improving channel coverage through refined channel operations.
It is reported that TCL Electronics' coverage in the global TOP 50 channels has exceeded 95%. This has led to TCL Electronics' overseas market revenue share for large-size display business reaching 68.3%, a year-on-year increase of 25.9% to HKD 41.06 billion, with TCL TVs ranking among the top three in retail volume in nearly 20 key countries worldwide.
It is evident that TCL Electronics' &#34;global localization&#34; is not a simple replication model, but rather a strategy of &#34;one region, one policy,&#34; allowing TCL's globalization to go beyond mere product output and shift towards &#34;deep adaptation to local demands.&#34;
Notably, under this strategy, TCL Electronics has continuously optimized its operational efficiency. In 2024, the sales and distribution expense ratio, driven by precise marketing strategies, decreased by 1.0 percentage points year-on-year to 7.6%; the administrative expense ratio fell by 0.9 percentage points year-on-year to 4.2%, and the overall expense ratio decreased by 1.9 percentage points year-on-year to 11.8%.
In the long term, TCL Electronics' globalization strategy enables it to achieve cost reduction and efficiency enhancement. With a focus on mid-to-high-end products, the company's gross profit margin is expected to further improve, thereby achieving high-quality development.
<h2>Leading Layout in New Tracks, Intelligent Ecosystem May Become New Growth</h2>
In 2022, the release of ChatGPT sparked widespread discussion in society both domestically and internationally, with some considering it a &#34;significant event marking the arrival of AI.&#34; The emergence of C-end ChatGPT products has allowed the public to intuitively feel that AI can understand complex language commands, greatly breaking through the previous perception of AI as merely handling simple tasks.
In early 2025, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out, &#34;China attaches great importance to the development of artificial intelligence, actively promotes the deep integration of the internet, big data, artificial intelligence, and the real economy, cultivates and expands the intelligent industry, and accelerates the development of new productive forces to provide new momentum for high-quality development.&#34; Artificial intelligence has been included in the national development strategy, and the government has introduced a series of policies to promote technological innovation, resource construction, and industry applications. According to iResearch Consulting's forecast, the scale of China's artificial intelligence industry will exceed one trillion yuan by 2029, with a compound annual growth rate of 32.1% over the next five years.
In the wave of AI, smart home technology is undoubtedly a battleground for future home appliance companies. As an industry leader, TCL Electronics has also laid out its plans in the AI field early on. Ten years ago, TCL Electronics proposed the concept of &#34;AIoT full scene, full ecosystem, full product&#34; for smart homes and has launched smart appliances every year
Currently, TCL Electronics is still actively exploring the AI field, not only embracing DeepSeek in AI assistant applications but also integrating this technology into various categories such as televisions, air conditioners, and mobile phones, fully opening a new chapter in smart living. For example, TCL TVs connect to DeepSeek through their own Fuxi AI platform, focusing on deep cooperation in areas such as multimodal understanding, knowledge processing, and content services; TCL washing machines, based on the Fuxi AI large model and DeepSeek's real-time reasoning capabilities, can generate personalized smart laundry solutions, providing users with a cleaner and more considerate laundry experience; TCL refrigerators have developed AI energy-saving and noise-reduction functions based on the Fuxi AI large model, intelligently recognizing the operating environment and status of the device, combined with an in-depth understanding of user habits, to achieve adaptive optimization of defrosting and compressor frequency; air conditioners, mobile phones, smart door locks, and other categories are also realizing more intelligent application scenarios through AI technology.
It is noteworthy that not only traditional large appliances but also innovative categories such as consumer-grade smart glasses and smart robots are competitive high grounds for the application of artificial intelligence technology.
Take AI + AR glasses, for example. With the empowerment of AI large models, smart glasses can achieve a more natural human-computer interaction method and can expand into richer application scenarios. For instance, with the addition of a display module, &#34;AI + AR&#34; glasses can enable real-time translation, AR navigation, and other new functionalities.
According to IDC data, the global smart glasses market is expected to ship 12.05 million units by 2025, a year-on-year growth of 18.3%. The industry generally believes that with the deep integration of AI technology and breakthroughs in optical display solutions, 2025 will be a key node in the smart glasses market. It can be said that the era of AI + AR glasses is about to arrive.
In the field of smart glasses, TCL Electronics' incubated emerging company, Thunderbird Innovation, has taken the lead, holding the top position in China's consumer-grade AR glasses market for three consecutive years.
In addition to smart glasses, TCL Electronics made a groundbreaking announcement at this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES), unveiling the world's first split-type smart home companion robot, TCL Ai Me.
TCL Ai Me features a split-type cabin and bionic design, serving as a core choice for achieving a &#34;full-scene intelligent companionship&#34; strategy. As a diverse and dynamically changing usage scenario, the family presents highly personalized characteristics in user needs across different demographics and situations. TCL Electronics has deeply integrated TCL Ai Me into the smart home ecosystem, acting as a super entry point that not only allows for multimodal natural interaction with people, providing warm emotional companionship and human-like interaction, but also continuously learns and adapts to the behavior habits of family members.
With subsequent iterations of algorithm technology and content ecology, TCL Ai Me is likely to develop as rapidly as Mini LED television products, redefining the imaginative space of companion robots.
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<h2>Summary</h2>
From a medium to long-term perspective, a series of strategies by TCL Electronics essentially represent a paradigm shift that prioritizes operational quality over growth in scale. Through high value-added mid-to-high-end products, premium capabilities from global layout, and continuous optimization of operational efficiency, the company is constructing a sustainable development path driven by technology and prioritizing stable operations.
As TCL founder Li Dongsheng stated, &#34;Daring to invest in the future is the key to having a future&#34;—long-term investments in display technology, artificial intelligence, and management capability building will position TCL Electronics more favorably in the global industrial chain restructuring.
It is worth mentioning that TCL Electronics has also performed exceptionally well in the capital market. Despite a sluggish Hong Kong stock market in 2024, TCL Electronics' stock price rose against the trend due to outstanding performance, with an annual price increase of over 150%, and a continued surge of nearly 50% since the beginning of the year. Despite the continuous rise in stock price, its PETTM is only 13.5 times, which is still about 50% lower than the valuations of A-shares and international peers. Coupled with technological innovations such as AI, TCL Electronics' valuation is expected to align more closely with technology companies. In terms of dividends, Wind data shows that based on the latest annual calculations, its dividend yield is as high as 6.27%, exceeding the Hang Seng Index's 4.91%, providing shareholders with a very attractive return.
This &#34;dual dividend&#34; of capital appreciation and cash flow return precisely confirms the long-termism gene of the enterprise in creating value for shareholders. In an era of low interest rates, benchmark companies that can consistently deliver on the dual commitment of &#34;growth premium + stable dividends&#34; naturally earn deep trust and value reassessment in the capital market

01070

TCL ELECTRONICS achieved revenue of HKD 99.32 billion in 2024, a year-on-year increase of 25.7%; net profit after tax reached HKD 1.85 billion, a year-on-year increase of 123.6%. Its global TV shipments increased by 14.8% year-on-year, reaching 29 million units, ranking among the top two globally. Through technological innovation and product structure optimization, TCL successfully broke the stereotype of "low growth" in the TV industry and set an industry benchmark

Zhitong

From "Screen Display Revolution" to "Scene Reconstruction," TCL Electronics' Leap to High-End and Release of Ecological Dividends