Thomson SA

Thomson SA (Société Anonyme) grew out of Thomson-CSF, nationalised by the French government in 1982. In 1988 Thomson Consumer Electronics was formed, renamed Thomson Multimedia in 1995. The French government split the consumer electronics and defence businesses prior to privatization in 1999, those companies being Thomson-CSF (today Thales Group) and Thomson Multimedia (later renamed Thomson SA). Thomson SA has steadily moved out of consumer electronics manufacturing; in 2004 Thomson set up a joint venture (TTE) with China's TCL, giving to TCL all manufacturing of RCA and Thomson television and DVD products and making TCL the global leader in TV manufacturing. (Thomson still controls the brands themselves and licenses them to TTE). In December 2006 Thomson SA sold off its Audio/Video and Accessories businesses (which included all its consumer electronics under the RCA and Thomson brands, except TVs, (now part of TTE)) and communications products to Audiovox. In 2007, Thomson SA agreed to sell its consumer electronics audio video business outside Europe including the worldwide rights to the RCA Brand for consumer electronics audio video products. Instead Thomson SA has moved into the into broadcast management, facilities and services market, taking over Technicolor from Carlton Television, Corinthian the Television and Moving Picture Company from ITV in the early 2000s. In September 2005 Thomson first showed its revolutionary Infinity camcorder. At the April 2006 launch this was not described as a camera at all but instead described as 'a new line of IT-based acquisition, recording and storage devices'.