Thomson SA

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Thomson SA NYSE: [TMS] Euronext: [TMS], formerly known as Thomson Multimedia is a multinational electronics manufacturer and media services provider headquartered in Boulogne-Billancourt, France. The company has almost 60,000 employees (as of 2004), in 30 countries worldwide. In 2005, Thomson's consolidated revenues were € 8.5 billion.

Contents

1 Organization
2 Portfolio
3 History
4 External links

4.1 Company website
4.2 Company data

Organization

Thomson operates under four strategic brands servicing a variety of global markets:

Thomson: Providing consumer electronics to Europe
RCA: Providing consumer electronics to North and South America
Grass Valley: Providing equipment and services to broadcast industries throughout the world
Technicolor: Providing services to film industries throughout the world

Thomson also uses the GE (under license) and other brands for consumer electronics in the United States. It uses both the Thomson and RCA brands for consumer electronics in the Asia-Pacific region.

Thomson also controls the patents and licensing of the MP3 audio codec.

They also produce a TiVo-based personal video recorder.

Portfolio

Consumer electronics
*Scenium range of HDTV and EDTV TV systems
*LiFE range of low cost 4:3 CRT TV systems
*Scenium DVD and home-theatre systems
*Lyra personal media players
*Digital TV receivers
*Satellite receivers (division acquired from Grundig)
*GE digital and analog telephones
Film services
*Film processing
*Post production and special effects
*VHS, DVD and film-reel authoring and distribution
*Digital cinema
Broadcast equipment and services
*Video disk recorders and servers
*Digital news production
*Cameras
*Routers and control surfaces
*Broadcast facilities
*Digital media asset management
*Analogue and digital radio broadcasting equipment
*Cable modems

History

Thomson is named after the electrical engineer Elihu Thomson who was born in Manchester, England, on March 26, 1853. Thomson moved to Philadelphia at the age of 5, with his family.

Thomson formed the Thomson-Houston Electric Company in 1879 with Edwin Houston. The company merged with the Edison General Electric Company to become the General Electric Company in 1892. In 1893, the Compagnie Française Thomson-Houston (CFTH) was formed in Paris, a sister company to GE in the United States. It is from this company that the modern Thomson Group would evolve.

In 1966 CFTH merged with Hotchkiss-Brandt to form Thomson-Houston-Hotchkiss-Brandt (soon renamed Thomson-Brandt). In 1968 the electronics business of Thomson-Brandt merged with Compagnie Générale de Télégraphie Sans Fil (CSF) to form Thomson-CSF. Thomson Brandt maintained a significant shareholding in this company (approximately 40%).

In 1982 both Thomson-Brandt and Thomson-CSF were nationalized by François Mitterrand. Thomson-Brandt was renamed Thomson SA (Société Anonyme) and merged with Thomson-CSF.

In 1987, the state-run Thomson bought RCA and GE Consumer Electronics from GE.

In 1988 Thomson Consumer Electronics was formed, renamed Thomson Multimedia in 1995. The French government split the consumer electronics and defence businesses prior to privitisation in 1999, those companies being Thomson Multimedia and Thomson-CSF. Thomson-CSF went through a series of transactions, including with Marconi plc, before becoming Thales in 2000.

Like its American counterpart, the French Thomson has manufactured a variety of electrical, and later electronic, products for industrial, consumer, and military markets.

In 2000, Thomson Multimedia purchased Technicolor from Carlton Television (owned by Carlton Communications) in the UK.

In 2001, Thomson Multimedia purchased the Grass Valley Group from a private owner.

In 2002, Thomson Multimedia renamed itself Thomson.

In 2004, Thomson purchased the Moving Picture Company from ITV. Later in the same year, Thomson began a move into the broadcast management, facilities and services market, with the purchase of Corinthian Television. In the same year Thomson increased its stake in bangalore based Celstream Technologies specializing in product engineering.

Later 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.) At the time, TCL was hailed as the first Chinese company to compete on the international stage with large international corporations. Thomson initially retained all marketing of TTE's products, but transferred that to TTE in 2005.

In June 2005, Videocon Group India announced that it would acquire the colour picture tube manufacturing business from Thomson SA for Euro 240m. [link]

In December 2005, Thomson re-purchased the Broadcast & Multimedia part from Thales Group. It also announced its intention to eventually sell off its Audio/Video and Accessories businesses, which includes all consumer electronics under the RCA and Thomson brands except TVs (now part of TTE) and communications products such as cordless phones (which it will keep).

External links

[Article: Le modem cable/VoIP Thomson THG520 sur Developpez.com]

Company website

[Official site]

Company data

[Yahoo! - THOMSON Company Profile]

CAC 40 companies of France

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