[josephlord]

While I agree it isn't necessarily an obvious move I disagree on the reasoning. The volume and total value is there but margins are small and the existing products are already physically stylish and offer a lot of features (although there is room to improve on the UI).

If Apple could come in and get their usual margins and take a noticeable market share it would be worth it.

http://bgr.com/2012/07/23/samsung-lg-lcd-tv-sales-market-sha... - first useful link googling TV market size.

44M TVs in Q1 (low season in Europe and US but quite a big one in China due to New Year) of which Samsung took 19%. If we assume average price of $500 (maybe 50% of that number are small 24" and less cheap TVs) and a conservative total of 160M TVs annually it is about an $80BN market. If Apple could get 5% of that it is still $4BN annually or about what they get from iPods or 2/3 of what they get from Mac desktops. And if they go for it I'm sure they would be aiming for at least 5% of the market.

The other bonus is that maybe half of that share would come from Samsung who is not only the biggest manufacturer overall but winning at the top end too. This would hurt Samsung more than a billion dollars from a lawsuit.