Hisense

• 1. Introduction

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  Hisense began not as a television company but as a small radio factory in Qingdao, China, making sets sold under the name Red Lantern. That was September 1969. Today the company behind that modest origin holds the title of largest TV manufacturer in China by market share, a position it has held since 2004, and in 2022 it shipped more television units than any other company on earth except one. How did a state-owned factory that assembled fewer than a hundred black-and-white sets in its earliest years become a global force producing everything from 100-inch screens to smart operating systems running on more than 30 million devices worldwide? The answer runs through deliberate technology purchases, aggressive acquisitions, high-profile sports sponsorships, and a willingness to sell under other companies' brand names while quietly building the industrial infrastructure of a true multinational.

• 2. From Radio Factory to TV Maker

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  The Shandong National Defense Office placed an order that would change the company's direction entirely. It asked the Qingdao factory to trial-produce black-and-white televisions, and to make that happen, three employees were sent for technical training at Tianjin 712, another Chinese factory. By 1971, the result was 82 completed television sets. Transistor TVs followed by 1975, and the factory's first proper TV model, the CJD18, rolled off the line in 1978.

  A nationwide shift accelerated things. Television production in China had been tightly constrained until 1979, when a meeting of the Ministry of Electronics in Beijing called for a broader civil-use electronics industry. The Qingdao factory was folded into a larger unit called Qingdao General Television Factory, merging with other local electronics makers.

  By 1992, then-president Zhou Houjian pushed for radical changes that would eventually produce the Hisense Group name in 1994. The Hisense Electrical Appliance Share Holding Company went public on the Shanghai Stock Exchange in April 1997. The price wars of the 1990s Chinese electronics market, punishing for many, were a boon for Hisense: by 1998, the company had absorbed ten failing enterprises into its fold.

• 3. Buying the Knowledge

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  Hisense made a clear-eyed judgment about its own technological limits and acted on it. Rather than trying to develop every capability from within, the company purchased technology from Matsushita, Hitachi, Lucent, NEC, Sanyo, Toshiba, and Qualcomm. That list represents some of the most formidable electronics firms of that era, and buying their know-how rather than licensing end products gave Hisense the foundation it needed for sustained manufacturing growth.

  One concrete result was Hisense Air Conditioning Co Ltd, set up in 1996 in Pingdu using frequency conversion technology purchased specifically from Sanyo. Another was a mobile phone subsidiary whose roots trace back to a research institute formed in 2000; by the time Hisense Mobile Communications Technology Co Ltd was formally created in 2005, it held 233 patents, 64 inventions, and 116 software copyrights. One of its products, the Hisense C108, was the first mobile phone to use Qualcomm's Mirasol screen technology, which can be read clearly in direct sunlight.

  The company's proprietary HiView chip, developed in 2005 for digital media processing in color television sets, was another marker of this approach: targeted internal development in areas where Hisense could build a durable advantage.

• 4. Acquiring Brand Names

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  In July 2015, Hisense paid $23.7 million for a Sharp factory in Mexico, and alongside that deal came rights to use the Sharp brand name on televisions sold across North and South America. The arrangement did not stay peaceful. In June 2017, Sharp, now under its new owner Foxconn, sued Hisense and sought to end the license, accusing Hisense of damaging Sharp's reputation through what Sharp described as shoddy manufacturing that allegedly violated U.S. safety standards for electromagnetic radiation, as well as deceptive advertising. Hisense denied all of it and said it would fight in court. By February 2018, Sharp dropped the lawsuit.

  On the 15th of November 2017, Hisense reached a $114 million deal to acquire a 95% stake in Toshiba Visual Solutions. In 2018, Hisense became the majority shareholder in Gorenje, the Slovenian appliance manufacturer, taking 95.4% of shares and eventually reaching 100% by 2019. The British fridge brand Fridgemaster joined the portfolio in 2012.

  Today Hisense retails under the names Hisense, Toshiba, Gorenje, Sharp, Kelon, Hitachi, Asko, and Ronshen. Each brand covers a different market segment, with some aimed at high-end buyers and others, like the Combine label, positioned for no-frills purchases by Chinese farming communities.

• 5. Sports, Stadiums, and Global Reach

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  In July 2008, Hisense signed a six-year naming rights deal with Melbourne & Olympic Parks, attaching its name to what became Hisense Arena in Melbourne, a venue used for basketball, netball, tennis, and cycling. It was the first stadium in the world to carry a Chinese company's name. By 2018, the arena had been renamed Melbourne Arena.

  Hisense was the main sponsor of UEFA Euro 2016, then extended that relationship to cover all UEFA National Team Football competitions ahead of Euro 2020, with the current deal running to 2026. Starting with the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, Hisense became an official FIFA World Cup sponsor, also backing the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup. On the 30th of October 2024, Hisense was announced as the first official partner for the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup.

  Formula One brought Hisense into the pitlane as a global partner of the Lotus F1 team in 2014, followed by a partnership with Infiniti Red Bull Racing from 2015 to 2017. On the 27th of July 2017, Hisense and Aston Villa F.C. announced a strategic partnership. In March 2020, Hisense signed a three-year agreement as a major sponsor of Australia's National Rugby League, gaining naming rights to Thursday Night Football as part of the deal.

• 6. VIDAA and the Software Layer

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  VIDAA, a Linux-based smart TV operating system, was introduced in 2014 by VIDAA USA, Inc., a subsidiary of Hisense. Its purpose is to give viewers a unified platform for streaming services, live TV, and applications without switching between systems. By 2023, VIDAA reportedly ran on over 30 million connected devices worldwide, and in 2024 it ranked as the second most installed smart TV operating system behind Samsung's Tizen.

  VIDAA's content partnerships span more than 400 providers, including Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, HBO Max, Crunchyroll, DAZN, iQIYI, and Viaplay. The platform is not exclusive to Hisense hardware; it runs on TVs made by Toshiba, Polytron, and Loewe as well. Leica also built a projector, the Cine Play 1, based on Hisense's C2 Ultra hardware with an improved optical component of Leica's own design, running VIDAA.

  The operating system represents a strategic shift from hardware to platform. As of 2023, Hisense's flagship TV line was the UX series of mini LED sets, positioned above its own OLED models, while the company also claimed the title of the largest manufacturer of 100-inch TVs by shipment.

• 7. Legal Scrutiny and ACR

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  In December 2025, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against Hisense and four other smart TV manufacturers. The suit alleged that the companies were secretly recording what consumers watch at home using automated content recognition technology, known as ACR. A Texas judge followed the filing with a restraining order blocking Hisense from gathering or sharing viewer data from residents in the state. Hisense's denial of the Sharp lawsuit allegations in 2017 and 2018 offers a precedent for how the company has handled legal challenges; the outcome of the ACR case remained active as of late 2025.