LCD-TV prices dip 22% for Black Friday

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Alex Duran chuckles at the nearly impossible task of loading a 46-inch flat-screen TV in the back seat of his mother’s Ford Taurus on Black Friday. He said he was in the market for a smaller set, but the discount at Sears South Coast Plaza was so good that he purchased a bigger one. Credit: Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times.

You weren’t imagining those killer discount deals on TVs over the Black Friday shopping weekend. The iSuppli research firm said today that LCD-TV prices dropped 22% in time for the day-after-Thanksgiving sales. But that wasn’t on just occasional deals -- that was the average discount.

Some sizes offered even steeper drops, especially in smaller-sized TVs. The 26-inch models were down almost 35% to an average price of $250, compared with $384 before Black Friday, according to iSuppli.

The most commonly advertised models for the weekend were in the 32-inch size. The average price for those was down about 25% to $369, compared with $490 before the shopping holiday.

Shoppers looking for big-screen LCD-TVs didn’t get such good bargains. The 46-inch sets sold for an average of $964, down just 7%.

Generally, the biggest price drops were on brand-name sets from the likes of Samsung, LG and Sony. The reason was simple: ‘Because these companies sell their sets at higher price points that the value brands,’ said iSuppli analyst Riddhi Patel, ‘they are able to make steeper cuts during Black Friday.’

Some of the Black Friday deals continued into today, but then prices will be heading back up.

‘This kind of aggressive pricing won’t continue into December,’ iSuppli analyst Tina Tseng said. ‘But we will be seeing some deals.’

You might not be too late to get a Black Friday-like price, however, if you’re patient.

‘I think that for some of the smaller sizes, you might see the deals come back just before Christmas,’ Patel said. And if you’re willing to celebrate a little late, even the bigger sizes might head down again.

‘For the large screens,’ Patel said, ‘the Black Friday prices will start to become everyday prices on Christmas, and that goes until the Super Bowl.’

-- David Colker