- A report claimed that LG was in talks with Hisense executives to explore a possible sale of LG’s TV business.
- The original report has been taken offline to be “reviewed by an administrator.”
- LG tells TechRadar that “These reports are unfounded”
Today has been a rollercoaster for fans of the best OLED TVs: a major report from Korean business news outlet EBN claimed that LG was exploring the possibility of spinning off and/or selling its TV business to Hisense.
However, the original report has now been removed from the EBN website and replaced with just a pop-up message saying that the report does not work while it is “reviewed by an administrator.”
An LG spokesperson told TechRadar: “These reports are baseless.” LG provided a slightly longer statement to Android Authority that is more blunt: “LG Electronics would like to state that this news regarding the possible sale of its TV business is completely unfounded and therefore completely speculative and misleading.”
The original report claimed that LG executives traveled to Beijing to meet with Hisense executives, including discussions about the future of LG TVs and possibly a sale of the entire LG TV business to Hisense.
Maybe this happened, maybe it didn’t, maybe it was misreported – LG’s denial is firm, but companies often strongly deny things they then do. But if the same thing happened, it would follow an increasing trend, so it wouldn’t necessarily be that surprising.
From Philips to Sony and Panasonic… maybe LG?
If LG were considering a full sale or partnership with Hisense, it wouldn’t be the first major TV brand to do so: Sony’s partnership with TCL will likely give a boost to Sony’s mid-market and budget models, with Sony providing the brand prestige and proprietary technology and TCL bringing its high-volume manufacturing efficiencies.
Panasonic has reached a similar deal with Skyworth to manufacture its American TVs, and many Japanese TV brands are also manufactured under license, including Toshiba and Sharp.
Philips televisions have been manufactured under license for years: TP Vision manufactures them in Europe and Skyworth manufactures them in the United States.
The reason for all this is simple: manufacturing TVs is a tough business with fairly low profit margins, so you need to sell tons of TVs to make money. LG’s OLEDs do good business, but its LED TVs have struggled to impress and are not as dominant as its OLED TVs.
TCL and Hisense are gaining market share across the board thanks to their ability to produce really solid mid-range sets that are pretty cheap, to the point that Hisense eclipsed LG’s sales in the premium TV market last year.
This kind of deal could probably boost LG’s entry-level and mid-range offerings, but there would probably be a lot of resistance online from OLED fans, because Hisense doesn’t love that technology much. (A similar concern faces Sony fans of the TCL partnership.)
Still, LG says it has nothing to worry about: Reports of the death of its TV business have apparently been greatly exaggerated.
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