For $150 million.
Hisense Electric Co., Ltd, a publicly listed subsidiary of Hisense Group, has purchased Toshiba TV production, brand, research and development, sales functions and operation service.
Hisense will purchase 95% stock shares of Toshiba Visual Solutions (TVS) Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Toshiba Corporation, for 12.9 billion Yen (A$150 million) with Toshiba retaining 5% stock holding.
In a statement to the Shanghai Stock Exchange overnight, Hisense said it will obtain the TVS businesses and license to use the Toshiba brand for a period of 40 years for visual solution partners operating in Europe, South East Asia and other markets.
“TVS primarily operates in TV and variety of ancillary products, including commercial and advertisement display products. The TVS purchase also secures two factories in Japan and hundreds of Toshiba R&D employees as well as a significant IP portfolio relating to TV technology business patents for image quality and acoustics,” the statement said.
Hisense Group CEO, Liu Hongxin, said that Hisense would optimise TVS’s resources on R&D, supply chain or global sales channels, cooperate with and support each other in display technology, provide competitive content operation services for smart TVs for the global market and accomplish fast growth in Japanese market.
Hisense Australia head of marketing, Andre Iannuzzi (pictured above) told Appliance Retailer, “This is great news for the Hisense brand as the brand continues to grow through acquisition. Hisense Australia will continue to work closely with our Head Office to develop plans.”
“As the official television sponsor of the FIFA World Cup Russia 2018, Hisense is poised to continue to expand and implement its global brand vision and strategy. With the benefit of this acquisition, Hisense will develop and enlarge its international strategy of TV business in R&D, branding and marketing by operating under multiple brands. The cooperation between Hisense and Toshiba will drive changes to the new picture of TV business,” the statement continued.
According to the IHS, sales of Toshiba TV ranked number three in the Japanese market in 2016 with the Hisense TV market share in Japan the highest among all non-Japanese brands. Collectively, the brands cumulative market share reaches over 20% after the transaction.
Hisense’s TV business in 2016 ranked third in the world (IHS) and has held the number one market share in China for 13 consecutive years.
More details will be shared as they become available.