Changhong
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|
 ChiQ (international) logo | |
 Changhong (domestic) logo | |
| Changhong, CHiQ | |
Native name | 四川长虹电器股份有限公司 |
| Company type | Public |
| SSE: 600839 | |
| Industry | Television Manufacturer |
| Founded | October 1958 |
| Headquarters | , |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Zhao Yong 赵勇, President, Wang Fengzhao 王凤朝, Vice Chairman, G.M., Liu Tibing 刘体斌, Vice Chairman, Deputy G.M., Tan Mingxian 谭明献, Secretary, Board of Directors, Deputy G.M. |
| Products | TV, Refrigerator, Air Conditioners, Set Top Boxes |
| Total equity | 12,741,313,930.51 RMB[1] |
Number of employees | 32,000[1] (May 20, 2011) |
| Website | chiq.com cn.changhong.com |
Sichuan Changhong Electric Co., Ltd., doing business as Changhong (长虹) domestically and CHiQ internationally,[2][3] is a Chinese consumer electronics company based in Mianyang, Sichuan,[4] founded in October 1958. In 2004, 90 percent of the television sets exported from China to the United States were made by Changhong.[5] It was the second-largest manufacturer of televisions in China as of 2010.[6]
History
[edit]1950-99
[edit]Changhong emerged from the Changhong Machinery Factory, which was a state-owned large enterprise established in the 1950s.[7] The company, which was part of the 156 key projects that were aided by the Soviet Union, focused on the development and production of airborne fire control radar system.[7]
Changhong Electronics developed during the Third Front campaign to develop basic industry and national defense industry in China's interior in case of invasion by the Soviet Union or United States.[8]: 4, 219 Changong Electronics is the best-known electronics manufacturer to arise during the Third Front period.[8]: 219
By mid-1970s, Changhong began manufacturing products for civilian use when demand for military hardware declined, eventually focusing on the television product line.[9] During the next decade, it beefed up its technological capabilities with a series of partnerships with overseas companies such as Panasonic, from which it imported tubes and advanced production lines to drive the volume production of television.[7] It was a major driver in the regional share of television production in inland China rising from 0 to 32% of national production.[8]: 219 In 1980, the company already boasted the production of over 10,000 television units annually and by 1988, this number rose to almost a million units.[9] In 1994, the company was listed as a publicly traded company and, a year later, it was recognized as China's largest television manufacturer.[9]
2000-present
[edit]In 2001, Changhong reached an agreement with David Ji, the chairman of the American company Apex Digital.[10] Changhong was at that point China's largest television manufacturer, a supplier majority-owned by the company-town city of Mianyang and the province of Sichuan.[10] The company provided two-thirds of the city of Mianyang's revenue, and Changhong's chairman and managing director Zhao Yong was until late 2004 the city's deputy mayor.[11] Changhong became Apex's largest supplier of DVD players.[10] Apex also began selling Changhong-made television sets.[10]
On October 23, 2004, as Apex was in a business dispute with Changhong in which the two companies argued over hundreds of millions of dollars, as Ji was in China on a business trip he was arrested by Mianyang police in his hotel room in Shenzhen, China, near Hong Kong, who came from 500 miles away from Shenzhen.[12] [10][13][14][15] Changhong accused Ji of defrauding them through bad checks.[16] He was held in China by Changhong for months without charges.[10][12] Ji was taken to Sichuan, where he was handed over to Changhong, which kept him in a makeshift jail.[10] On his fifth day there, he was placed on the phone with a Washington D.C. lawyer named Charlie Wang (Wang Xiaoling, in Chinese), of the American law firm Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, who accused Ji of committing fraud and said that Ji's only way out was to sign documents that Wang would deliver to him that would help Changhong recover missing funds.[10] Ji was then presented with legal documents for his signature that pledged all of Apex's assets as well as Ji's personal assets to Changhong to settle a claimed $470 million debt.[10] Ji initially refused.[10] A guard then asked Ji, "Do you want this pen, or do you want your hand?", as the guard made a motion of chopping off his hand.[10] Ji signed the papers.[10] On December 14, 2004, Changhong sued Apex in Los Angeles County Superior Court, alleging breach of contract and citing the documents Ji had signed.[10] Apex contested the suit, stating that Ji had been abducted and that the documents had been signed under coercion.[10]
Since 2004, Changhong's development strategy and operating mechanism system have changed from time to time, and the industrial scale has expanded rapidly, becoming the leading enterprise in the domestic intelligent integration industry layout. It owns four listed companies including Sichuan Changhong, Changhong Meiling, Changhong Huayi and Changhong Jiahua.[citation needed]
Changhong has a minimal presence in North America, where as of 2021 it sold TVs through the online retailer Newegg. It markets its brand CHIQ in United States.[17] Another line of products is the manufacturing of nickel–iron batteries.[citation needed]
Leadership
[edit]| Presidents of Changhong | |
|---|---|
| MA Zhang | 1957–1961 |
| SHI Fu | 1962–1964 |
| WANG Zhidong | 1966–1974 |
| KANG Naide | 1975–1980 |
| HU Zhengxing | 1981–1982 |
| WANG Jincheng | 1983–1984 |
| NI Runfeng | 1985–2004 |
| ZHAO Yong | 2004-2023 |
| LIU Jiang | 2023–present |
References
[edit]- ^ a b "Changhong 长虹". Webold.changhong.com. 1994-03-11. Archived from the original on 2011-09-02. Retrieved 2014-06-14.
- ^ "四川长虹简介". group.changhong.com. Retrieved 2022-08-16.
- ^ "About CHiQ". www.chiq.com. Retrieved 2022-08-16.
- ^ "Contact Us." Changhong. Retrieved on August 5, 2015. "Head Office Address: 35 East Mianxing Road, High-Tech Park, Mianyang, Sichuan, China" Chinese address: "四川省绵阳市高新区绵兴东路35号"
- ^ Buckley, Chris (29 December 2004). "Changhong, China's largest TV exporter, announces a huge loss". The New York Times.
- ^ "Changhong, Jianghuai Auto, TCL, Zijin: China Equity Preview". Bloomberg. 3 August 2010.[dead link]
- ^ a b c Yu, Q.Y. (1999). The Implementation of China's Science and Technology Policy. Westport, CT: Quorum Books. p. 193. ISBN 1567203329.
- ^ a b c Meyskens, Covell F. (2020). Mao's Third Front: The Militarization of Cold War China. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108784788. ISBN 978-1-108-78478-8. OCLC 1145096137. S2CID 218936313.
- ^ a b c West, Douglas; Ford, John; Ibrahim, Essam (2012). Strategic Marketing: Creating Competitive Advantage, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 558. ISBN 9780199556601.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Joseph Kahn (November 1, 2005). "Dispute Leaves U.S. Executive in Chinese Legal Netherworld," The New York Times.
- ^ "Efforts Continue to Win Release of American in China," The New York Times.
- ^ a b "Held Hostage In China". Forbes. 1 November 2005. Archived from the original on 1 November 2005.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) - ^ "U.S. Embassy Confirms Arrest Of Apex Digital Chief in China". The Wall Street Journal. 31 December 2004. Retrieved 18 May 2022.
- ^ "US company boss arrested in China". 30 December 2004. Retrieved 18 May 2022.
- ^ "Arrest of Apex Digital Chairman in China Confirmed". The Los Angeles Times. 30 December 2004. Retrieved 18 May 2022.
- ^ "The Price Is Wrong". IEEE Spectrum. 1 March 2005. Retrieved 18 May 2022.
- ^ "About – CHiQ". Retrieved 2021-02-08.
