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Plasma Prices Taken Down With Holiday Decorations
Electronics | Jan 9, 09
As the lights and tinsel that illuminated an otherwise dismal holiday shopping season disappear, it seems retailer’s hopes for firm plasma television prices are also fading away.
PriceSCAN just put out a press release noting a 3.4% drop in our 40-49 Inch Plasma Television Index in the week including the New Year. This contrasts with a mere 2% drop over the preceding holiday shopping period. The extraordinarily weak sales of this season may have put vendors under acute pressure to draw down plasma inventories, especially in the face of the challenge presented by LCD technology.
This price drop is illustrated by the Panasonic TH-42PZ85U VIERA, currently the most popular plasma under 50 inches on PriceSCAN (see graph below). Back in March of last year this set was priced between $1,700 and $1,800; currently vendors are offering it for around $1,000 including shipping.
Time Period: 3/3/2008 through 1/5/2009
Each tick mark represents one week
Red = High Price, Blue = Average Price, Green = Low Price
The post-holiday discounting may be magnified by the somewhat stable holiday pricing of plasmas relative to other technology goods (see for example “Seven Seems To Be A Lucky Number For Digital Camera Price Cuts” and “AMD Chips In Holiday Price Dip”). Attempts to hold the line on plasma prices during the holidays may now have sellers playing catch-up to a broader, recession-stricken consumer tech market. It will be interesting to see if prices keep falling with the snows of what, for retailers and manufacturers, is turning out to be a very cold winter.
Posted by jeffrey.trester (Permalink)
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