Curious to learn more about who makes Insignia TVs and where they actually come from? Perhaps you’ve heard that they are made by Hisense or another brand and are wondering if that’s true.
In researching this question I discovered that there’s an easy answer (Insignia is made by Best Buy, mostly in China) and then there’s an even more interesting answer.
You see, Insignia isn’t just made by one manufacturing partner — it’s made by over 100 partners. Some of them may contribute more than others, but it still takes a huge amount of coordination to make something as complex as an Insignia TV.
Ready to go down a rabbit-hole of supply-chain weirdness in order to find out who really makes Insignia TVs?
Good, let’s get to it then!
Who Makes Insignia TVs?
The Insignia brand was first launched in September 2005 as a Best Buy Exclusive Brand (or ExB). Today, Best Buy works with 157 different suppliers located in Southeast Asia in order to produce their Exclusive Brands. Suppliers must submit to regular inspections of working conditions and environmental impact.
China and Southeast Asia are the literal hubs of television manufacturing, producing over 70% of all television sets worldwide. So it’s no surprise that Insignia’s are made there.
The largest TV maker in China by number of units sold is Hisense, so it’s likely that at least some of the suppliers that Best Buy works with are owned by Hisense.
This makes sense. After all, if you have a factory that is already churning out thousands of displays a week, it’s much easier to hire them to make a few changes to those displays, create a separate line for your brand, and start churning them out, too.
But there’s another layer to this story. And that’s where things get really interesting.
Insignia brand origin
As I mentioned before, Best Buy works with 157 suppliers to make Insignia TVs.
Best Buy doesn’t actually break down exactly how many of those 157 suppliers are dedicated to their TV brands (Best Buy actually owns two: Insignia and Dynex). But considering that none of Best Buy’s other in-house brands sell anything more complicated than a surge protector, it’s probably safe to say that most of those suppliers are providing parts for either Insignia or Dynex TVs.
If you want a sense of how many individual factories we’re talking about, Best Buy shared in 2021 that just two suppliers accounted for 15 total factories.
So that gives us an idea of the scale we’re talking about here. Somewhere on the order of 1,000 factories working together to produce, assemble, package, and ship every single Insignia TV to the US to be sold in Best Buy stores.
This network of suppliers is so complex that even Best Buy struggles to identify where some of the materials come from. In a recent company filing, they said that:
“Despite advances in supply chain transparency and traceability capabilities, it remains a challenge to identify, with certainty, the smelters, refiners and recyclers in our private label supply chain.”
— Best Buy Fiscal Year 2021 ESG Report, Page 62
An Ethical Supply Chain
But why does Best Buy even care which specific smelters its suppliers are using?
This ties back to a commitment to ensuring that their Exclusive Brands are made in an ethical and environmentally-conscious way.
And from all appearances, Best Buy seems to be doing a good job of holding their suppliers to some pretty high standards.
Every supplier involved in making Insigna TVs agrees to submit to a 12-page Supplier Code of Conduct (Best Buy even makes the full code of conduct available to read if you’re interested).
Among other things, this code requires suppliers to:
- Never engage in exploitative labor practices
- Actively prevent discrimination and harassment
- Ensure workplace safety
- Responsibly source all raw materials
- Conduct a manual self-report every year
- Submit to an in-person inspection by Best Buy employees at least every two years, including site visits and interviews with factory workers to verify conditions
They have an established process for handling violations depending on how severe they are. Violations that involve workers’ rights, such as allowing excessive overtime, are treated with the highest level of severity and require immediate action.
In addition, Best Buy is starting to take steps to incentivize positive changes throughout its supply chain. The majority (55%) of Insignia TV suppliers have already established a plan to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, with more expected to join soon.
And 66% of suppliers are working to reduce energy consumption at their factories.
Giving factory workers a voice
In 2019, Best Buy established the Worker Voice program to gain a better understanding of the working conditions experienced in the factories responsible for building Insignia-branded TVs.
That year they conducted interviews with 117 workers from 19 factories, asking them about their “work, life, impressions of their working and living conditions and the industry at large” according to one of the company’s recent reports.
Looking at only 19 factories out of over 1,000 may not seem like much, but this was done in addition to regular site inspections and additional worker interviews. And Best Buy plans to expand this program going forward.
FAQ
Where are Insignia TVs made?
Insignia is one of Best Buy’s Exclusive Brands, and the retailer contracts with hundreds of suppliers and factories in Southeast Asia in order to produce each television set it sells.
Conclusion
There isn’t a clean and easy answer to the question of who makes Insignia TVs, but here is what we do know:
- Insignia is a private label brand owned by Best Buy Co. Inc.
- Best Buy contracts with 157 suppliers in China and Southeast Asia to produce their Insignia TVs
- Suppliers are routinely inspected to make sure that working conditions are safe, humane, and environmentally sound.
- Best Buy is actively trying to trace every step involved in producing their televisions to ensure that they have an ethical supply chain for their private brands.
Not only do Insignia TVs boast strong reliability and owner satisfaction, but Best Buy seems to be putting significant effort into making sure that the people who make the TVs are treated and compensated fairly.
That’s reason enough to give the brand another look next time you’re in the market for a new TV.
Patrick Ward