TCL, China's largest TV maker, filed a lawsuit claiming it lost market share because Samsung Electronics misled consumers with false advertising about mini light-emitting diode (mini LED) TVs.
According to Reuters, on the 1st (local time) TCL filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California seeking to bar Samsung Electronics from labeling related to mini LED technology and to obtain monetary damages.
In its complaint, TCL said Samsung Electronics pulled a low-cost model from a recycled product line that was not mini LED and sold it to consumers as if it were an attractively priced mini LED model. It said Samsung Electronics' M-model TVs, which are advertised as using mini LED technology, in fact contain none of mini LED's technical advances and are merely repurposed standard LED TVs.
A lawyer for TCL said Samsung's false advertising misled consumers who wanted the high picture quality of mini LED TVs into buying products with false labels, and unfairly damaged TCL's sales, reputation, and valuable technology.
Mini LED TVs are LCD-based sets that densely arrange 100–200 micrometer (μm) light-emitting diodes (LEDs) around the backlight that serves as the light source, and they feature improved contrast and color reproduction compared with conventional LCD TVs. TCL was the first to bring them to market in 2019, and Samsung Electronics began releasing them in 2021. In the North American mini LED TV market, Samsung Electronics currently leads in market share ahead of TCL.
Reuters said it also sought comment from Samsung Electronics but did not receive an immediate response.