'Black Friday' Turns Green For HDTVs

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'Black Friday' Turns Green For HDTVs
New study says LCD and Plasma flat-screen sales soar on the day after Thanksgiving.
By Phillip Swann

Washington, D.C. (December 5, 2006) -- Several retailers advertised huge 'Black Friday' discounts on flat-screen HDTVs and it looks like it paid off.

A NPD Group study says Plasma unit sales jumped 140 percent on the day after Thanksgiving while LCD TVs above 30 inches experienced a 297 percent increase. (The numbers are compared to last year's Black Friday sales.)

NPD says deals such as $988 for a 42-inch Plasma HDTV ($300-400 less than normal) attracted holiday shoppers looking for that special gift.

"With some retailers offering TVs for their morning specials at prices that would have been below cost just a few months ago, consumers had incentive to go get that 'family' gift at a great price," the group said in a statement.

NPD says LCDs under 30 inches showed a 86 percent increase in unit sales while Plasma had a revenue jump of 63 percent on the big day.

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Black Friday has become known as the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season. NPD reports that the aggressive promotion of flat-screen TVs on Black Friday "continued to erode projection and tube TV sales and helped push flat-panel sales ahead of tube TV sales for the first time."

Overall, consumer technology retail sales grew nearly 12 percent on the week of Black Friday, generating more than two billion dollars. However, NPD says the year-to-year growth rate for all Black Friday sales is slowing.

"There are a lot of factors which contributed to the sales slow down," says Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis for NPD. "Revenue was up, actual sales volume was up, but prices were falling faster in some of the larger categories than consumers were buying, so despite apparently healthy store traffic and product demand the average consumer’s purchase grew less robustly than last year."

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Phillip Swann is president and publisher of TVPredictions.com. He has been quoted in dozens of publications and broadcast outlets, including CNN, Fox News, Inside Edition, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Financial Times, The Associated Press and The Hollywood Reporter. He can be reached at swann@tvpredictions.com or at 703-505-3064.

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