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A Blu-ray Of Light In The Retail Darkness?
Electronics | Dec 22, 08
After months of relentless declines, we’ve seen a significant firming of Blu-ray player prices in the last few weeks.
Since the beginning of November, PriceSCAN’s Blu-ray Index has climbed some ten percent, with a two percent rise last week (see our press detailing this price movement).
Blu-ray pricing found some support following the demise of Toshiba’s rival HD-DVD standard (see “Blu-ray Prices Spike, Give Oil A Run For It’s Money”) but that price strength failed to hold through the summer and early fall (“Recent Price Drops in AMD Processors, Blu-ray Players May Auger Retail Weakness”).
With this recent rally (albeit from price points far below those of early 2008), it appears Sony’s high-def disk standard has at least temporarily broken its downward price trend, which is all the more impressive in what’s been an anemic holiday shopping season. The steep discounting of past months may have made Blu-ray a more attractive value proposition in a weak economy, in which budget-constrained consumers could be “cocooning”, foregoing travel and entertainment outside of the home. For example, the most popular Blu-ray player on PriceSCAN, Samsung’s BD-P1500, is offered for as little as just under $200, less than the price of a one-night stay in many hotels.
In the wake of this disappointing retail period it will be interesting to see whether Blu-ray prices can maintain their newly elevated levels. For now, it’s worth noting Sony’s high-def format has demonstrated that, even in a recession, technology prices do not always go down.
Posted by jeffrey.trester (Permalink)
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