At the Shanghai AWE2026 trade fair, TCL Industrial’s China president Lu Chunshui offered a blunt diagnosis of a troubled TV market: with overall demand weakening, the only reliable way to get consumers to buy televisions is to sell bigger screens. TCL and rivals such as Sony, Skyworth and Changhong used the show to parade Mini‑LED, Micro‑LED and other next‑generation displays, but Lu singled out size — not merely pixel counts — as the decisive consumer proposition.
The backdrop is stark. Beijing‑based data firm AVC reports China’s retail television volume fell to 27.63 million units in 2025, down 10.4% on the year and the lowest level in about a decade. Even as unit sales slide, the premium display segment is reshaping the market: 75‑inch sets accounted for the largest share of retail volume (24%), while 85‑inch screens rose to a 13% share. TCL says that in China its single biggest revenue‑contributing television size last year was already 85 inches.
Executives are responding with two linked bets: push screen sizes upward and democratise high‑end backlight technology. Lu told reporters TCL will accelerate the roll‑out of its SQD‑Mini‑LED architecture across more affordable models, aiming to make flagship image quality accessible through supply‑chain efficiencies. AVC’s market data supports that technical democratisation: Mini‑LED TVs captured a 31.8% share of retail volume in 2025 and were the fastest‑growing technology, up 54.5% year‑on‑year.
The Mini‑LED category is fragmenting into technical camps. Manufacturers are educating buyers about RGB‑Mini‑LED versus SQD‑Mini‑LED approaches — in short, different methods of generating colour and contrast in the backlight layer — while Micro‑LED looms as a next phase once costs fall. AVC reports substantial price declines already: the average price for 98‑inch Mini‑LED sets fell about 30% in 2025 versus 2024, a sign that supply‑chain scale and component maturity are beginning to bite into the high‑end price premium.
For television makers the logic is commercial: fewer overall units need not mean worse returns if average selling prices and attachment rates for content and services rise. Larger sets and premium backlight technology can sustain higher ASPs and more appealing bundles for consumers who want immersive viewing for sport, cinema and gaming. But the strategy carries operational frictions: manufacturing, distribution and home‑installation logistics become more complex and costly as average screen size grows.
Lu’s focus on hardware comes as TCL founder Li Dongsheng has publicly argued that flagging television demand stems more from unappealing content than from poor hardware. That diagnosis points to a structural tension in the ecosystem: hardware makers can drive sales by upgrading experience, but long‑term viewing habits depend on programming, streaming platforms and advertising economics. If big screens succeed in reviving living‑room viewing, they will also create new incentives for content producers to chase shared, appointment‑style consumption.
TCL’s push to convert flagship tech into mass‑market SKUs is a calculated gamble on both supply‑chain scale and changing consumer priorities. Falling component costs and a hunger for immersive experiences make the bet plausible; whether large‑screen hardware alone can reverse the decade‑long drift in TV unit sales will hinge on content, channels and consumers’ willingness to trade portability for spectacle.