Always catching up, always surpassing.
As the first generation of entrepreneurs, Li Dongsheng and TCL have experienced several transformations, from telephone to mobile phone, and then to television, and finally semiconductors show that behind each transformation is a trough, and will also experience a round of peaks, standing on another node of the times, there are rises and falls.
But persistence alone is the ultimate answer.
After more than ten years, we look back and finally find that it is precisely because of some detours that the future road becomes flatter and opener.
In 1999, after TCL completed its Listing in Hong Kong, it began to go global. After three years of expansion, TCL swept the Southeast Asian market.
In 2004, Li Dongsheng decided to enter the European market, and his first battle in Europe chose the French TV giant Thomson, and finally Li Dongsheng acquired 67% of Thomson's equity for 314.9 million euros, and the success of the business acquisition allowed TCL to successfully occupy the North American market and the Western European market.
With an annual shipment of 18 million units coupled with a huge market share, TCL has become the well-deserved "king of color TVs". However, the injustice of fate can sometimes beat a person to the point of no return.
Li Dongsheng also did not expect that the business acquired at a high price was a business that would be eliminated by Europeans. To make matters worse, at that time, TCL not only acquired Thomson with huge funds, he also merged the mobile phone business of communications giant Alcatel, although in a short period of time TCL became the world's seventh and China's first mobile phone giant, but all this appearance quickly became a smoke cloud.
After the merger was completed, in just one year, the two companies incurred huge losses.
And Li Dongsheng himself, almost collapsed.
In 2006, Lee Dong-sang forcefully shut down Thomson, a difficult and painful decision that saved TCL from storm for the first time.
In 2008, Li Dongsheng found a new direction and invested heavily in Huaxing Optoelectronics to produce "LCD panels". In 2009, Li Dongsheng of huaxing t1 project smashed 24.5 billion yuan in one go, which was almost all the assets of tcl at that time. But in fact, at that time, TCL had just come out of the quagmire of loss, the danger was not far away, if this decision was made wrong, the blow to TCL would be devastating.
Li Dongsheng once recalled that at that time, it was also possible not to do it, but if it did not do this, the risk of tcl was still very large, although there was a risk in doing this, but it would not allow TCL to be marginalized in the competition.
In ten years, more than 240 billion yuan of investment has been accumulated, and finally achieved amazing returns. TCL has achieved a global leading position in the field of semiconductor display LCD. And Huaxing Optoelectronics is also the only enterprise in the industry that has not experienced annual losses since it was put into production.
In 2018, TCL completed a restructuring, divesting the traditional toC smart terminal business and establishing TCL Industry. Looking back at TCL's strategy, we will find that despite the lows, the company has always been on the right track.
Du Juan, the former coo and cfo of tcl technology, once said: "TCL has basically not stepped on the air in the general direction."
In early August, tcl announced the results of the first half of this year, of which the company's revenue was 74.373 billion yuan, an increase of 152.81% year-on-year; net profit of 6.784 billion yuan increased by 461.55% year-on-year. More importantly, its semiconductor revenue showed 40.8 billion yuan, an increase of 93.6% year-on-year.
Standing on the node of 40 years, this old technology company seems to have lost its former glory, but from a new perspective, this company has once again completed the "rebirth" and become one of the most important enterprises in the field of semiconductor display and semiconductor photovoltaics.
The future is still very long, although TCL jumped over the market value of 100 billion, and finally fell below the market value of 100 billion, but this company still stands on the front line and has never retreated.
In the past 40 years, the company has experienced countless transformations and countless wanderings, but it still insists on going through the cycle.
Someone once asked Li Dongsheng, what supports you through the darkest and most difficult period? His answer was simply two words: "Persistence."
This is the secret of TCL, and it is also the secret of Li Dongsheng.