PriceSCAN Blog

Many of the reported price increases have focused on highly-sought high-def plasma televisions, such as the 42'' Panasonic TH-42PX60U as well as LCD sets like the 40'' Sony KDL-40XBR3, The latter's recent price bounce can be seen in the PriceTrend graph below:

Time Period: 7/31/2006 through 12/4/2006
Each tick mark represents one week
Red = High Price, Blue = Average Price, Green = Low Price

However, there are examples of this kind of recent price action in other tech markets, such as that of digital cameras. One interesting case: the Canon PowerShot S3-IS, as of this writing the most popular digital camera on PriceSCAN.com. Despite its popularity, this is a fairly mature product, having been released prior to the end of the first quarter. Its six megapixel resolution is fine for most users, but it's no longer "state of the art". This is reflected in its price history. Since we began tracking it back in mid-March, it's fallen from $500 to a low of about $300 four weeks ago. However, in recent weeks the lowest offered price of this model has risen about 10%, and the average vendor price has jumped from just north of $360 to approximately $400 (see graph below). At least one major retailer is offering this camera for almost $100 more that the March price.

Time Period: 3/13/2006 through 12/4/2006
Each tick mark represents one week
Red = High Price, Blue = Average Price, Green = Low Price

The process of technological innovation tends to drive down prices of some generations of tech product as they become obsolete (the price of the state of the art is another story, as keeping up with the Joneses can be a necessity that need not drop in price. But the tech product cycle is a long and very noisy process, taking place in an arena subject to supply and demand, like any other market. As J.P. Morgan once observed, markets will fluctuate.