In the 1990s, CRT display technology was the target of domestic manufacturers such as Changhong, TCL, Hisense, etc., and the production capacity of CRT displays increased year by year.
In 2000, China became the world's largest producer of color TV sets, and domestic manufacturers paid more attention to CRTs and continued to invest heavily. At that time, TCL, already ranked among the domestic color TV giants, went further and initiated a series of ambitious cross-border mergers and acquisitions.
In 2002, TCL acquired Schneider, a century-old German store. In 2004, TCL, which was listed as a whole, continued to run at full capacity, directly targeting French Thomson's global color TV business.
Thomson is the originator of traditional picture tube televisions, and produced the world's first color television. It was ranked among the top 500 in the world at that time and was much larger than TCL. At that time, Li Dongsheng resisted the crowd and insisted on advancing this "snake swallowing elephant"-style merger and acquisition, which made TCL one of the top three in the global color TV industry. Since then, TCL has won the mobile phone business of another French company Alcatel.
That year, Li Dongsheng appeared on the cover of "Fortune" magazine and was awarded the title of "Asia's Most Influential Business Leader of the Year". He was also named "2004 World's Most Influential Business Leader" by the US "Time" magazine and other media. 25 business leaders".
However, at the same time that Li Dongsheng added his glory, a revolution initiated by liquid crystal display technology (LCD) is quietly subverting the original huge market of CRT.
Around 2000, Japanese and Korean manufacturers were already developing LCD technology. In 2004, LCD TVs with selling points such as "ultra-thin" and "high-definition" quickly occupied the market as soon as they were launched. Traditional CRT manufacturers have been severely impacted, and TCL, which has invested heavily in this technology, has not been spared.
Li Dongsheng has long seen the general trend of technological iteration, but he did not expect the changes to come so quickly. In 2005, Li Dongsheng's fourth life year, the two companies acquired by TCL suffered huge losses. The company suffered its first loss in 20 years, with a loss of more than 2 billion yuan.
Li Dongsheng, who was suddenly in trouble, lost more than 20 catties in half a year.
In 2006, TCL continued to suffer huge losses. In 2007, TCL was put on ST, and the former star enterprise became the target of public criticism. The Chinese version of "Forbes" left Li Dongsheng the sixth place in the "Worst Boss of Chinese Listed Companies" that year.
As for the reason for the initial loss, Li Dongsheng believes that the main reason is the insufficient judgment of the speed of upgrading from CRT to LCD in the color TV industry. At the same time, he made mistakes in the two directions of LCD and PDP (plasma).
However, the reason why Li Dongsheng became the current Li Dongsheng is that he was not defeated, but achieved Nirvana rebirth. In the widely circulated article "The Rebirth of the Eagle", Li Dongsheng expressed this view: Either wait for death, or complete the transformation through a very painful process of renewal.
Therefore, Li Dongsheng chose to catch up with the technological change of LCD panels. In 2009, TCL adjusted its business structure and jointly invested 24.5 billion yuan in the TCL Huaxing 8.5-generation LCD panel project with the Shenzhen Municipal Government. By 2012, TCL's LCD TVs were among the top three in the world for color TVs with a sales volume of 157.81 million units.