(Yicai) Sept. 15 -- Konka Group, once China’s best-selling maker of color televisions, said it will voluntarily delist from the Shenzhen Stock Exchange after four years of mounting losses, ending a 34-year run as a publicly traded company.

Konka’s shareholders approved the delisting proposal at an extraordinary general meeting held yesterday, formally initiating the process, the Shenzhen-based company announced the same day. The stock [SHE: 000016] was suspended from trading on Sept. 4, when it closed at CNY2.46 (37 US cents), giving Konka a market capitalization of less than CNY6 billion (USD894.1 million).

With its financial position already putting it at risk of a forced delisting, Konka opted to withdraw from the stock market of its own will, giving minority shareholders an opportunity to exit, a person close to the company told Yicai.

State-owned conglomerate China Resources, which took a controlling stake in Konka in July last year, plans to buy the shares it does not already own from minority shareholders at CNY2.48 apiece, the person noted, adding that if most minority shareholders exit, China Resources’ stake will increase to between 80 percent and 90 percent, making it a subsidiary.

Founded in 1980, Konka was China’s first domestic-foreign electronics joint venture. It began producing color TV sets in 1984, and was the country’s best-selling color TV brand for five years from 2003 to 2007. But mobile phones, tablets, and other connected devices have eroded demand for televisions, sending China’s TV market into a prolonged decline after it peaked in 2016.

Konka sought to offset the downturn by investing in and acquiring businesses to build a second growth engine, but the strategy failed to deliver and instead deepened its financial woes. From 2022 to 2025, the business had a cumulative net loss of CNY20.3 billion (USD3 billion), with the losses expanding year after year.

China Resources has already provided support to Konka through shareholder loans worth about CNY9 billion. Despite that, Konka is still under financial strain. In the first half of this year, its net loss shrank 55 percent to CNY173 million (USD25.8 million) from a year earlier, but revenue fell 27 percent to CNY3.9 billion.

Konka was placed under a delisting-risk warning effective April 30 after its audited net assets turned negative at the end of 2025. Under Shenzhen Stock Exchange rules, the company faced mandatory delisting if its audited net assets remained negative at the end of 2026. It had negative net assets of CNY6.2 billion as of June 30.

After leaving the bourse, Konka will retain its original brand and continue operating its color TV and semiconductor businesses, which will help it more confidently pursue debt restructuring, business streamlining, and asset revitalization without pressure from compulsory quarterly performance assessments, Dong Min, secretary-general of the China Video Industry Association, told Yicai.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Futura Costaglione