Mumbai: TCL, a global top two TV brand and top one 98-inch TV brand, recently claimed the second-place spot for TV market share in terms of shipment volume, thanks to break-through advancements in its Mini LED technology and its vision that bigger does really mean better when it comes to screen size. According to the latest data, TCL’s TV business has seen a 75.7 per cent growth in 65+ inch sales year-on-year, accumulating in the brand rising up the ranks as it continues to make its innovative technology available to the masses.
Due to changes in the global economy, the TV industry witnessed a decline in 2022, with global TV shipments down by 4.8 per cent year-on-year, and global revenue down by 13.2 per cent, leading to fierce competition among the industry’s key players. Understanding the impact advanced display technology can have on improving the daily lives of its customers through enhancing entertainment experiences, TCL carved out its unique advantage by being the first brand to adopt a value led Mini LED proposition. This successful approach resulted in TCL’s TV business recording a total of 23.8 million shipments in 2022, going against the global downward trend.
The world’s first truly accessible Mini LED TV
Realizing the potential of Mini LED technology, in 2019, TCL launched the world’s first Mini LED TV to achieve mass production. TCL’s consumers responded to the advantages of Mini LED technology–thanks to the increase in local dimming zones, producing greater brightness levels than ever before, for better contrast, color and clarity and overall enhanced picture quality. Through its strong brand influence and global channel advantages, TCL’s proportion of sales continues to increase with shipments of its Mini LED TVs rising by an impressive 26.8 per cent in 2022.
Testament to the popularity of TCL’s advancements in Mini LED technology, the brand has received numerous industry accolades. Two of TCL’s XL Collection Mini LED TVs, the TCL 75C935 and TCL 75C835, won CES 2023 Innovation Awards for their innovative ergonomic design and advanced Mini LED display technology, while the TCL 65C835, won the "PREMIUM MINI LED TV 2022-2023" EISA award from the European Imaging and Sound Association for its best-in-class performance.
TCL’s Mini LED milestones – making a play for category ownership
As a relatively new display technology, the greatest value that Mini LED brings to users lies in its ability to pack spectacular image quality in an ultra-thin screen. Achieving such an ultra-thin screen is one of the greatest challenges for manufacturers, as it leaves no gap between the light guide plate (LGP) and the Mini LED, resulting in zero optical distance (referred to as OD 0). To combat this, TCL established its very own Mini LED & Optical Technology Development Department in 2020, with the sole objective of overcoming this challenge by producing the highest number of backlight LED zones in the industry. After nearly a year of in-depth research, TCL launched the world's first TCL OD Zero Mini LED TV in 2021, with a thickness of just 9.9 mm and 1920 dimming zones – offering exceptional picture quality to OLED offerings.
Creating Mini LED products that users can afford
As a brand, TCL is on a mission to make great technology accessible to everyone. Once TCL’s leading R&D team discovered how to make quality Mini LED screens, they set about finding practical ways to produce these at scale.
The traditionally high cost of Mini LED products is in part due to the increased number of LEDs required. TCL’s research team devised a process to significantly reduce the cost of the LED itself, without impacting the uniformity of the overall display. Through the careful design and selection of LEDs, printed circuit boards and process controls, TCL successfully reduced production costs by more than 70 per cent.
