We made a decision not to get too obsessed with the details of all the offers that were seen on Black Friday this year. There are lots of amazing deals, not least from Samsung, LG and Sony as well as the second and lower tiers of brands. There are some astonishing bargains available both in the US and in Europe. In fact, just after we had finalised our story on the LG OLED, I got an email from Currys in the UK to offer an extra 10% discount on the 55″ and 65″ B series OLED TVs. Even Panasonic has got in on the act in Europe.
It’s amazing how quickly Black Friday has taken hold outside the US, when there is no Thanksgiving celebration to hang it around. I remember when I first heard about the event and just looked back in our database to see when it was and what we said. In fact, although we didn’t report on it, the first reference we have in the database was back in 1997 when someone explained that it was known as “Black Friday” because traditionally, the stores were so quiet. We later reported the explanation that this was the day in the year when stores went ‘into the black’ as demand ramped up before the holidays.
The first article that we wrote that reported on a Black Friday was in 2004 (Vol 11 Issue 45) when we reported that Westinghouse had special offers of a 27″ W32701 TV for just $1,199 and $1,699 for the W33001. Just after the event, we pointed out that the $220 billion spent on that day in 2004 was the GDP of Greece (before its collapse) and bigger than the GDP of Ireland. Checking the data again, that number does look a bit high as the US NRF estimates that total retail sales in 2004 for the November and December period was only at around $467 billion. By this year, the value is expected to be around $678 to $682 billion over the two months. That’s the same as the size of the GDP of Switzerland.
By 2008, we were reporting 32″ LCD TVs for $399 and in 2009, DisplaySearch reported a Vizio 55″ LCD TV at $1,199. By this year, 55″ is around $379 from TCL, but BestBuy had a Toshiba in-store at $279, a Westinghouse at $249.99 and an Insignia 32″ at just $99.00. Just amazing and a CAGR of very close to -20% on the 32″ set. At that rate, the $99 55″ is only around four years away! The same rate would mean a $25 32″ by 2023.
In Europe, the monitor market has been down this path and found that, at €99, it just wasn’t worth a retailer stocking the product, so the monitor makers have focused on higher end products, so I suspect that there is a price below which, the retailers simply won’t go, so the smallest sets held in store will just continue to rise in size.
Bob
