Who Makes Philips TVs And Where Are They Built?

There are a lot of outstanding TV brands on the market today, but there are few that have been around as long, or that have managed to maintain such a high reputation for reliability as Philips. The electronics company was founded in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, by Frederik Philips and his son, Gerard, all the way back in 1891. Since then, it has grown into a multi-national corporation that has been a pioneer across virtually every theater of the field of electronics. Everything from lightbulbs and spark plugs to electric razors and refrigerators has fallen under the company's purview. Philips got into mass-market television manufacturing back in the 1940s and continues to be a leading brand in the field today.

But few corporations can persevere for that long and remain unchanged. Philips no longer handles the production and distribution of the televisions that bear the company's name. Instead, it has sold this division of its business and now has little to do with the actual production, sales, or marketing of TVs. Knowing this, many fans of the Philips brand might be curious to know which company (or companies) makes its TVs today and where these products are manufactured.

Philips was largely responsible for its own television manufacturing for over 80 years until it began outsourcing much of its production, marketing, and sales for the North American markets to a Japanese company called Funai Electric in 2008. Then, in 2011, the company lost €87 million in the first financial quarter from a lack of HDTV sales. It was at this point that Philips decided to sell 70% of its TV division to the Hong Kong-based company, TPV Technology, and formed a joint venture called TPV Vision. Philips maintained a 30% ownership of the division, but all 4,000 of the employees who had been working for Philips were transferred to TPV management, and it assumed a majority of the manufacturing responsibility. In 2014, Philips transferred the last 30% to TPV. This meant that TPV Vision ceased to be a joint venture and became a full subsidiary of TPV Industries.

Today, TPV Vision manufactures a majority of the Philips-branded TVs that are sold in stores across the globe. Funai Electric has continued its role selling Philips brand TVs in the North American market, having renewed its deal with TPV in 2018, but TPV Vision is now responsible for developing, manufacturing, and marketing Philips TVs that are sold in 93 different countries across the globe, including those in Europe, Asia, South America, and the Pacific.

But now that you know who makes Philips TVs these days and where they're sold, you might also be interested in learning where they're made. Well, given that they're currently owned by a Chinese company, it probably won't come as too much of a surprise to learn that a significant number of their components are produced from their raw materials in Chinese factories.

That said, just because many of the parts are made in China doesn't necessarily mean that's where they are assembled into the final product. One of the company's biggest manufacturing plants is located in Gorzów Wielkopolski, Poland. According to AirBeamTV, "The facility is one of the largest and most advanced television manufacturing plants in Europe and is responsible for producing a wide range of televisions, including high-end models like the OLED+935 and the OLED854." This is the company's largest location, but it's far from its only factory. Philips-brand TVs are also made by TPV in facilities that can be found in Russia, Brazil, and Argentina. Meanwhile, Funai has production subsidiaries in Mexico, Thailand, the Philippines, and Hong Kong — so those who live in the U.S. will likely be getting a television that was produced in one of these locations.