Is Now the Best Time to Buy a Samsung Premium TV?
It’s time to measure whether you are getting a good deal if you are buying a TV set.  Typically the year’s lowest price are found around Thanksgiving and Black Friday (Between day 311 and day 330), with prices rising through the Christmas holiday and the end of the year.  Figure 1 shows  a comparison of Samsung (005930.KS) Premium* TV set prices over the period of one year (1st available year).  The composite value (the sum of the price of all category models) is relevant but less so  than the price trend relative to other years, as the make-up of each year’s model roster is different.
Our data indicates that Samsung’s 2025 Premium TV (Mini-LED/QD) models saw a large price drop (down 16.2% over the last month), pushing the group to a yearly low (down 24.2% YTD) with almost all models hitting yearly lows.  At this point in the year most brands are heavily focused on current year models, with Samsung’s Premium 2024 models down only 7% for the month, although they are down 22.5% over the 2024/2025 period.  Interestingly, the 2025 models are already down 25% YTD, a bit more than the 2024 models, with the 2025 models looking like they are still declining in price.
November is a time when some of the more extreme pricing that Samsung does with its ultra-large TV sets loosens up.  The example would be Samsung’s 8K 98” Mini-LED/QD TV, which carried a $40,000 price tag for much of the year until a $5,000 price drop in August.  However, this month the price has been reduced again by 14.3% to $30,000, offering this behemoth at a 25% discount to its original price.  More apropos to the average consumer, we look at the Samsung’s mid-tier (QN65QN80F) 65” model.  This premium set is not too small and not too large for the average living room.  It is a Mini-LED/QD 4K set with all the bells and whistles typically allocated to Samsung’s mid-tier price range.  When the set became available at the end of March, it was priced at $1,800. This week (11/11) it is priced at $1,000, down 44% for the year.
Relative to 2024, while the basic trend remains the same,, there has been more price volatility this year.  This is likely a function of the trade tariff situation between the US and its allied trading partners, including South Korea.  We expect, on a short-term basis, that Samsung was working toward maintaining inventory levels that would give it some leeway (both directions) as the tariff situation changed.. Currently, if we align the starting value points for each year, 2025 discounting has been a bit ahead of 2024, which we expect will be maintained through Black Friday, but we expect that new models in 2026 to see price increases at the onset..
Samsung typically uses the Consumer Electronics Show in January to ‘reveal’ the company’s new TV models, but holds back pricing information until the pre-order period, between two weeks and a month before the official release date.  This leaves us blind to 2026 Premium TV set pricing until late February, but we expect to see higher initial prices to absorb higher component prices and tariffs.  That said, we also expect that Samsung might reduce the size of the Mini-LED/QD lineup, as it did this year by eliminating quantum dot only sets from the premium category.  Given that there are six price tiers for Mini-LED/QD TVs, we believe Samsung could eliminate one tier without stunting the premium Mini-LED line.    While Samsung has been a major proponent of 8K TVs, power consumption restrictions in Europe made 8K sales more difficult this year and while we would not expect Samsung to give up on 8K completely, we could see a single price tier, rather than the current two. 
Price Signals and the Purchase Decision
Based on the price trend analysis of Samsung's 2025 Premium Mini-LED/QD TV sets the data presents a clear signal for consumers.
The current deep discounts—such as the 24.2% Year-to-Date drop across the premium line and the 44% discount on the mid-tier QN65QN80F ($1,800 to $1,000)—confirm that the period around Day 311 to Day 330 (Thanksgiving and Black Friday 2025) is living up to its reputation as the lowest price point of the year. The aggressive discounting on the ultra-large 8K models, such as the $10,000 reduction on the 98” set, further illustrates a full-scale inventory clearance push.
Crucially, this year’s price drop comes with an added variable: future pricing risk. While new models will debut at CES in January, our expected higher initial MSRPs for the 2026 lineup—driven by component cost increases and trade tariff uncertainty between the US and its trading partners—suggest that the price floor for comparable feature sets is likely to be meaningfully elevated next year.
Conclusion:
This is not just a historical discount; it is a convergence of end-of-year clearance and a hedge against future market uncertainty. For the majority of consumers, the current pricing offers the best possible value on a premium Samsung Mini-LED/QD TV. If you are in the market for a high-end 4K or 8K set, our data strongly suggests that the decision to purchase should be made now, before prices rebound through the Christmas season and before the inevitable, tariff-driven inflation of the 2026 TV model launch.
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It seems that according to informed sources in Japan, Sony (SNE) has decided to adopt the latest advancement in LCD technology in a big way.  The system, known as RGB (mini) LED is another push against OLED technology, which has been gaining recognition in IT devices.  Although this technology has been shown at shows over the last few years, it was officially introduced at CES this year, with Hisense (600060.CH) showing a 116” model and Samsung (005930.KS) a 115” model.  TCL (000100.CH), an early supporter of mini-LED/QD backlighting technology is thought to be developing an RGB mini-LED product for consumer release as part of its high-end line.
The purpose of RGB mini-LED backlight technology is to create a brighter set with more vivid colors while still using LCD technology, as opposed to the more expensive OLED process, which is known for its deep blacks and rich colors.  Given the vast LCD infrastructure that has been developed over the last decade, LCD display producers are always looking to find better ways to compete with new or emerging display technologies and RGB LED is that next step.
In a typical mini-LED LCD TV, the backlight is made up of white or blue LEDs arranged in zones. As the light from these LEDs determines the maximum brightness of the set, one would think that the LEDs for such a backlight should be big and bright, but that is not always the case. 4K TV sets have over 8 million pixels, each able to generate a small part of the complete video frame, with their brightness theoretically based on the amount of light behind them (the LED backlight array).  However, when the scene has both dark and light images, large LEDs leak light into dark pixels and turn them gray instead of black.  In order to reduce this effect, mini-LED backlights use small LEDs grouped in zones that can be turned on or off zone by zone.  While the zones don’t line up against the light and dark parts of the image, the fact that there can be many individually controlled zones, improves the light leakage issue.  Further, each zone is comprised of multiple strings of LEDs (strings are a group of LEDs that work as one) that can be controlled string by string. 
Logic holds that as the number of zones increases, the preciseness that the backlights can provide to the display’s millions of pixels improves, but more zones usually means smaller and more LEDs overall, which is why mini-LED sets tend to be more expensive than generic LED backlight sets.  Behind all of these LEDs that are constantly being turned on and off (and many levels between) is the system that controls them.  The basis for this system is the video processor, a specially designed chip that accepts video information before it hits the screen and reformats it to to the zone closest to that pixel set.  Typically video processors look at this information on a frame-by-frame basis, which means they see brightness  information on every pixel 30 times each second.  Just one data point for each pixel would generate ~248 million data points each second so these processors are specially designed to provide a high-speed data stream.  All of that data is passed on to the LED drivers whose channels are connected to the LED springs.  Based on that massive amount of information, the LED zones are lit to try to correspond to the light and dark parts of every frame.
It’s a complex system that moves at millions of bits/second, but it’s all black and white.  As the light from the LEDs passes through the liquid crystal pixels that open or close to create an image, on top of the pixels is a color filter, essentially a sheet of red, green, and blue dots.  Each LCD pixel is made up of three sub-pixels, each of which correspond to a red, green, or blue dot on the color filter.  By adjusting the amount of light that passes through the three LCD sub-pixels, each pixel can create any color.  There is a problem however, in that the color filter is subtractive and reduces the overall brightness of the display as it subtracts two primary colors to create one from white LED light. 
This system is the basis for every LCD TV, with Mini-LED backlight systems adding more LEDs to the mix, but what about the RGB LED backlight systems mentioned earlier?  In order to reduce the subtractive effects of the color filter, display engineers decided that using colored LED backlights would reduce the amount of ‘filtering’ the color filter needed to do to create colors, and RGB LED backlights were born.  But it is not as simple as it sounds.  Now the video processor not only has to figure out what light level each string much have (30 times/sec.) but now has to figure out how to mix the three color strings in each zone to get closest to the color of that particular section of the image frame.  Once it does those calculations for each zone and string for each frame, it sends the data to the drivers that generate the electrical charge.  This means that instead of one white string in a particular zone, there are now three strings (RGB) and one driver now becomes three drivers.
  

​This is where the trade-off of cost vs. quality becomes important.  Driver ICs represent ~20% of the cost of the backlight system, so increasing the number of drivers increases the system cost and while the total number of LEDs can remain the same; in order to maintain the same number of zones in an RGB system, the number of LEDs could triple.  The processor, which now handles considerably more information processing would likely need an upgrade, so the bottom line is that the cost of an RGB LED backlight system for LCD TVs will be higher than those currently used.
Sony does have an advantage over other brands, making it more obvious why they seem attracted to this new technology.  They are the top of the premium TV price tiers and can absorb the higher cost more easily than some.  As of now, with the only available RGB LED sets being over 100”, the additional cost means little, but it will when the technology gets down to smaller size TVs.  Since the point is to compete with OLED, RGB LED TVs need to be at or below OLED premium levels, which will be difficult at the onset, so this new technology will need to prove itself in the quality arena  which is Sony’s wheelhouse.  More than likely Samsung and TCL will have the largest number of RGB LED backlit TV sets in terms of models, while Sony will have the premium (most expensive) sets, once this technology enters mass production (2026), but there has to be a meaningful difference in visual quality to measure up to the higher price, and that will be up to the consumer to decide.  The current price of the Hisense 116” model in the US is $30,000 as is the 115” Samsung model.  A ‘regular’ 115” Mini-LED TV is ~$20,000 and the largest LG (066570.KS) OLED TV (97”) is $18,000.  Sony has a 98” LCD set that sells for ~$6,200 (MSRP).

​Sanan Optoelectronics (600703.CH) completed a private equity sale of $1.13b US to be used to increase the capital of the company’s Mini/Micro LED project in Hubei province.  The project has turned profitable according to the company as of September of this year on a net basis and the company feels the expansion is warranted.  The shares were purchased by a number of institutions, some state-owned, and are locked in for 6 months.  The project was originally announced in 2019 with a 3-year construction window and a production goal of one year after construction was completed, although there have been reports that Sanan had been producing production samples in March of this year.
Sanan has signed agreements with Samsung (005930.KS) for the supply of Mini-LEDs, likely being used for watch displays, a JV with Chinastar (pvt) for Mini-Micro-LED R&D, and has been  approved as a supplier to Apple (AAPL), so the company has a legitimate reason for raising capital to expand production, at least from a customer perspective, although Apple has also been working with Epistar (3714.TT) and automotive lighting specialist AMS OSRAM (pvt) for a number of years on various Mini-LED and Micro-LED projects.  We expect the latest capital raise is Sanan’s push to become the dominant volume supplier to Apple, and Apple is certainly one to encourage additional capacity investment from suppliers.
The Mini-LED market is a relatively new one and is still evolving and while we expect the Mini-LED market, which is an adjunct to LCD displays, to grow steadily over the next few years particularly for high-end LCD displays, we see such vast differences in estimates and forecasts for the Mini-LED space (estimates range from $39m to $174m for 2020 and from $81m to $411m for 2021), that it seems a bit problematic when it comes to evaluate such diverse forecasts without knowing what is included.  The same goes for longer-term forecasts, which vary even more greatly out in the 2027 – 2030 timeframe, and the prospects for Micro-LED, which, in theory, would compete with LCD and self-emissive displays, are even more tenuous.  Sanan, already a major LED producer, is among other Chinese LED producers who have been investing is Mini-LED capacity this year, including $717m from Jiangxi Zhaochi Semiconductor (pvt), a similar capacity increase from Xiamen Changelight (300102.CH) and a 289m investment in HC Semitek (300323.CH) by China’s leading LCD display producer BOE (200725.CH), with these firms also looking to become major Mini-LED suppliers as the market develops.

As we have been doing since May of 2021, we check pricing on Samsung’s (005920.KS) Mini-LED/QD and QD only TVs to map how macro, seasonal, and holidays affect pricing on this category, particularly as it is a relatively new category and one toward the high-end of the TV pricing.  We have also been tracking Samsung’s QD/OLED TV pricing since it appeared in May of this year, an even more distinct product type that only Samsung Display (pvt) is able to produce currently.  While we don’t check prices for all on a regular schedule, we try to work toward specific events or holidays, and with Black Friday only two days away, we thought it helpful to see whether Samsung is being naughty or nice to its high-end TV customers.
2021 Models
As Samsung is slowly disengaging from its 2021 line, no longer offering 2021 8K Mini-LED/QD sets (900A & 800A series) on its website, along with eliminating one of last year’s Mini-LED/QD 4K series (85A) and one quantum dot only series (80A), Samsung has thinned last year’s models, but seems to have little rhyme or reason as to how they are pricing the remaining 2021 Mini-LED/QD 4K line over the last three weeks.  They did cut the price of last year’s massive 98” Mini-LED/QD 4K TV from $15,000 to $13,000 (↓13.3%), which they have only done one other time (during the July 4th holiday) this year, and reduced prices on all but one of last year’s Mini-LED/QD 4K sets, putting 4 of the 5 Mini-LED/QD 4K sets from last year at their lowest price points since their initial release last year.  Samsung lowered prices on 3 of the 13 2021 quantum dot only 4K sets (70A & 60A), putting 5 in that group at their lowest ever price and one (55” 4K QD only) at its highest price.  Overall, on all the remaining Samsung 2021 Mini-LED/QD and QD only sets, prices declined by 3.9% since our last check on 10/31.
2022 Models
Samsung was a bit more aggressive with pricing on this year’s models but seems to have abandon promoting its 8K Mini-LED/QD line (900B & 800B) whose prices have remained flat over the last month.  As we have previously noted, there are issues with 8K sets in Europe starting in March of 2023, data suggests that 8K sets have been poor sellers so far this year, and the macro environment is less conducive to such high-priced models that offer little image improvement give the lack of 8K content, so there seems to be little incentive for Samsung to discount the sets, other than to dump stale inventory in the retail channel. 
That said, Samsung cut prices substantially on high-end Mini-LED/QD sets (95B), with 3 of the 4 in that line dropping by between 20.0% and 44.4% and putting that group down 48.9% from their initial prices set in May.  Samsung also lowered prices between 5.2% and 11.1% on the lower-priced quantum dot only line (60B), leaving most of the remaining lines flat for the period.  On an overall basis, Samsung cut prices across this year’s 8K and 4K Mini-LED/QD and QD only lines by 5.3% for the period, putting the entire 2022 line down 33.8% from initial prices set 224 days ago. 
However Samsung seems to set price declines during the year more in order to reach a specific price point for the holiday season than to stimulate sales for a particular holiday, as model pricing for this year’s line reached the same dollar price point at Black Friday as last year, despite a lower initial price.  This puts the onus on manufacturing to maintain margins by lowering costs at the same rate as set prices reductions.  We expect this was a difficult task this year but not an impossible one, as panel prices declined while semiconductor and other component prices increased early in the year.  That said, component costs are a bit better now, so there is some hope that manufacturing could lower costs enough to maintain margins, but that leaves little wiggle room on prices if Samsung wants to move excess TV set inventory. 
QD/OLED
Samsung’s QD/OLED TV line, which consists of a 65” and a 55” model, continues to see price declines, now down 27.6% from its initial price for the 65” models and a decline of 32.4% for the 55” model, based on Amazon (AMZN) pricing.  As this is the first year such sets are available there is no comparative data, which means Samsung is flying blind with pricing and is competing against Sony (SNE), whose QD/OLED set prices remains at their original list price of $2,499 (55”) and $2,999 (65”).  Samsung seems far more willing to find a price point that consumers find attractive than Sony, and prices for both models on Amazon, as shown in Figure 3, are close to the discounts that Samsung has offered on its company site. 
The QD/OLED TV product comes at a difficult time given the macro concerns that are troubling large economies across the globe, but Samsung seems willing to test its price elasticity despite the weak environment.  Samsung does have a considerable stake in the success of the product considering affiliate Samsung Display has chosen it as their step toward a mass produced OLED TV and eliminated its LCD TV panel production capacity, but the limited production capacity that is currently available to SDC is not enough for parent Samsung to make it a cornerstone of its premium TV line.  This leads to a decision by Samsung as to whether they are willing to commit to QD/OLED and ok the SDC funding to build additional QD/OLED capacity, which needs to be made relatively soon if that capacity is not to miss the 2023 holiday season.  We see the discounting as a necessary step toward enhancing Samsung’s understanding of consumer response to QD/OLED and moving the decision-making process forward.
While this has been a disappointing year for TV set sales, especially against the economic backdrop, we are a bit more optimistic about 2023 in that we expect component pricing to continue to decline and TV panel prices to be more stable than this year.  That said, consumer buying power is declining so it is hard to find an impetus for a demand driven scenario in 2023, but we expect at least a more stable TV market, making it a bit easier for those who need to make billion-dollar decisions about capacity.  We are keeping our expectations low, but the glass seems slightly more full than empty, with the emphasis on slightly.

As we have been tracking TV set pricing for Samsung’s (005930.KS) 8K and 4K Mini-LED/QD and QD only sets since their release in May of last year, along with this year’s models, we can get a good picture as to where Samsung set pricing is relative to premium TV set pricing.
Samsung has eliminated a number of last year’s models from its website, particularly the top-end (900 series) 8K mini-LED/QD sets, (the 85” model had a price of $5,000 on our last check) some 4K mini-LED/QD sets (85A) and some quantum dot only sets (80A).  Most are still available on Amazon (AMZN) and a few other sites, but at much higher prices than where they ended on Samsung’s site.  More importantly, there was relatively little discounting on the remaining 2021 models over the last month or so.
That was not the case with the 2022 models, where discounting heading into November was very heavy.  The six 8K min-LED/QD sets offered this year saw a 15.7% drop over the last 55 days (9/9 to current), the 12 4K mini-LED/QD sets saw a 12.3% decline, and the QD only sets (2022 only) saw an 8.7% decline, while all 4K sets combined saw a 10.7% decline, and the value of the 2022 sets on a price/in2 of surface declined by 39.4% so far this year.
This puts 33 of the 36 sets in the 2022 mini-LED/QD or QD only line at their lowest point this year, with the 3 that are not at their lowest point all being 98” sets that have remained at $15,000 since they were released.  Looking at Figure 1, it is obvious that TV set price reductions have begun earlier this year than last and while this year’s year-end prices might be closer together than current prices would indicate, we expect they will be lower given the economic situation this year. 
With Black Friday only 25 days away, we expect Samsung to continue to offer more aggressive discounts this year to entice customers who are facing a much weaker economic scenario than last year.  The TV space overall has already been facing a difficult year as we have noted in the past, but while brand shipment/production expectations have declined as the year progressed, primarily in the 2nd half, more recent cuts seem to indicate that TV brands have come to a point where they have to choose between reducing prices to gain unit volume or trying to maintain margins on lower unit sales.  Samsung has recently cut its shipment/production expectations by ~12.5%, and given that they are the largest TV set producer globally, we expect they are indicative of what other brands are contemplating.  If we were to apply the same reduction that Samsung recently made and applied it to all of the other brands, the result would be shown in Figure 2 ‘current column.  Note that some brands will not see cuts that large while others will see worse, so the ‘current’ column is an illustration, not an estimate.  We expect actual 4Q results to be modestly better than shown.

Given that the headlines over the Labor Day weekend were abounding with comments on the discounts available due to overstocked items in the CE space and beyond, and that the shortages and transportation bottlenecks are rapidly ending, we thought it appropriate to check Samsung’s (005930.KS) Mini-LED/QD Tv pricing to see if such discounts were apparent in that TV space.
While it was only 22 days since we last checked prices, it turns out there was a bit more price movement than we might have expected, although we know the inventory situation in the TV space overall entered the period at a higher than normal level.  There was considerable disparity between Samsung’s 2021 TV line[1] and the new 2022 line.  In terms of price movement, only 5 sets in the 2021 line saw a decrease in price, while 25 saw price declines in the 2022 line, indicating in which model years the excess inventory was held.  Further, the average period decline for the 2021 line was -0.5% while the average period decline for the 2022 line was 6.3%. 
More telling is the fact that the average decline from the original release price for the 2021 line was 27.6% while the average price decline from the original price for the 2022 line was 21.8% but the 2021 decline took place over 474 days, while the 2022 decline took place over 146 days, a rate of decline almost twice as fast as last year..   While we hesitate to speculate on where that would put 2022 Mini-LED/QD TV prices by next year, with 17 2022 models at their lowest price since release and only 10 at their lowest out of last year’s line, the trend toward lower Mini-LED/QD and QD only TVs seems set, at least into the holidays.
All in, it seems Samsung is certainly a bit more aggressive as to pricing for its Mini-LED/QD line this year, and with offerings from TCL (000100.CH), LG Electronics (066570.KS), Sony (SNE), Philips (pvt), Konka (000016.CH), Huawei (pvt) and Hisense (600060.CH) either available or announced this year, as opposed to Samsung, TCL, and LG last year, it is not surprising that Samsung is competing a bit more aggressively this year.  To get an idea of the competition and range of prices we put together a list of currently available Mini-LED TVs and prices.  We note that we cannot certify that all models shown have Mini-LED and quantum dots and we not that all models vary as to other features.


[1] Our data includes only Samsung’s Mini-LED/QD and QD Only TV lines and does not include Samsung’s generic LCD TVs.

As we have noted, TV brands have cut orders in order to reduce excessive inventory levels, particularly as inflation reduces consumer demand.  While tracking the price of the hundreds of TV models available to consumers, we have been tracking the pricing of Samsung’s (005930.KS) Mini-LED/QD TV lines both this year and last year in order to see how Samsung reacts to seasonality, macro events, and inventory management.  As the TV sets in this line encompass prices ranging from $15,000 to $450, it gives an indication as to the general tone of premium to mid-range TV pricing.  While we don’t check pricing on a set schedule, as holidays and events play an important part in TV pricing, most of the intervals are between 3 and 4 weeks so charts look relatively normal, and our data today is just over 1 month from our last check.
Discounting to move inventory was not Samsung’s theme over the last month, as on an overall basis prices on all 2022 Mini-LED/QD and QD only models increased by 1.8%, while 2021 models saw a 2.0% increase.  2022 8K models saw an unusual price increase of 7.0%, after a drop to their lowest price point last month, while last year’s 8K models saw little change.  2022 4K Mini/QD models saw a 3.0% price increase with 2021 models jumping 5.7% and this year’s QD only sets saw a 2.1% price decrease (the only category that saw a decrease), while last year’s QD only sets saw a small (0.2%) price increase.  8 of this year’s models were at their lowest price of the year while 2 were at their highest, while 16 of last year’s models were at their lowest price and 4 at their highest.
All in, we expect Samsung was more concerned with margins than moving inventory during the last few weeks, albeit contrary to expectations, and pushed prices back up to previous levels after a short July 4 discounting period.  Figure 1 shows the four general categories across the line and how 2021 and 2022 pricing has changed, while Figure 2 shifts the 2022 models back in time to compare new model price changes to the same time period last year, which shows how 2022 model pricing has progressed relative to last year.  We note that 2022 4K Mini-LED/QD pricing includes 4 models that did not exist in the 2021 line, making average set pricing higher this year although the price pattern is similar.

Samsung Electronics has been wrestling with smartphone inventory issues, with ~18.5% of the company’s recently revised smartphone shipment targets already in distributor’s hands, considerably above the standard 10% to 12% usually held.  Much of the inventory is the Galaxy A series (2022 models range in price from ~$182 - $525), which has sold poorly this year, which Samsung Display had been producing aggressively early this year before parent Samsung Electronics lowered their shipment target from 310m units to between 270m and 280m.
But the increase in inflation and overall uncertainty over the war in Ukraine has made consumers even more careful about spending and the TV space has also not been spared from similar inventory issues and target cuts.  While it is not surprising that the bulk of the shipment reductions would be LCD based, given its dominant share of the set market, both Mini-LED and OLED TVs are expected to see continued growth this year of what is expected to be a 270m to 280m unit market.  Unfortunately, the malaise that has set over the TV market since the end of 1Q continues to extend and estimates for both of those TV set growth products are beginning to decline.
Most recently OMDIA reduced its expectations for Samsung’s Mini-LED TV shipment target from between 3m and 3.5m to just 3m and while the category is still seeing massive growth (8.3m units this year up from 1.9m last year), trimming the more aggressive targets seems the case recently, although the growth in the category is still massive.  Mini-LED is also applicable to IT products, typically monitors and laptops, where shipments are expected to grow by 45.5% this year to 20.8m units but only by 3% in 2023, leading to a decline in Mini-LED IT shipments in 2024 and 2025, under the scenario that despite Apple’s increased use of Mini-LED going forward, the company will shift to OLED in those later years.

In the US (2020) Christmas is the biggest spending holiday, generating ~84% of yearly retail sales, with Labor Day a distant 2nd at 3.66%, but that does not preclude retailers from offering financial inducements to encourage shoppers during lesser holidays, especially when demand has been weak in previous months and inventories are high.  With Memorial Day coming up on Monday, retailers, both brick & mortar and on-line, are beginning to offer discounts to grab some attention and stimulate CE sales.  We went back to Samsung’s (005930.KS) Mini-LED/QD TV line to see if there have been significant price changes in both the older 2021 line and the new 2022 line.
For reference Samsung introduced its 8K/4K Mini-LED/Quantum Dot TV line in May of last year, offering two categories of 8K Mini-LED/QD TVs, two categories of Mini-LED/QD 4K TVs, and three lines of Quantum Dot only TVs, for a total of 35 different models.  This year they updated those lines and brought the model count down to 33, eliminating some models that had very similar features, but continued to sell much of the 2021 line along with the newer 2022 models.
 As we have been collecting pricing data on the 2021 line since its release, the latest round of discounts has now brought the price of last year’s Mini-LED/QD and QD only line down from 29.2% early this month (from original price last May) to down 34.2% currently, although only 24 of the 35 models were at their lowest price point, down from 27 earlier this month.  8K Mini-LED/QD sets have declined the most since last year, down 41.7%, while 4K Mini-LED/QD sets have declined 39.9% over the last year, with QD only sets down 28.1% in the aggregate.
Since the Samsung 2022 Mini-LED/QD line was released in April today’s readings are the first to show discounting from those original prices, with an overall decline of 7.0% from initial April pricing, andthat includes one model set (4K Mini-LED/QD) that was just released.  8K Mini-LED/QD sets declined 8.1%, while 4K Mini-LED/QD sets declined 5.3%, and QD only sets dropped 8.3%.  In order to illustrate the price path of the 2021 models and the staring points of the equivalent 2022 models we have the price charts for the various models below.  W note that while the 2021 timeline is accurate, we have added the 2022 models as if they followed the same 2021 timeline to see how they track against last year’s price reductions and starting points, with the 2022 models represented as dotted lines. 
In most cases the 2022 line initial prices were lower than those in 2021, with the average 2022 starting price for the entire line 6.7% below the initial price of the 2021 line, which would portend interim and holiday pricing for the 2022 line below that of last year.  LCD TV panel prices have certainly come down on a y/y basis and we expect Mini-LED backlight arrays have also been reduced in price as new suppliers enter the market, but other components, raw materials, and transport costs have increased, offsetting some of those panel and backlight price declines.  Chinese brand TCL (000100.CH), the first TV brand to offer Mini-LED TV sets, has just released their 2022 (4th generation) Mini-LED/QD set line, which is priced considerably below the Samsung line, which would likely account for Samsung’s first round of price cuts (see Table 1 ), although Samsung considers its TV line to have more sophisticated features and a higher quality than Chinese brands and therefore deserving of a premium.  Consumers will determine if that is true for this line….

China’s TCL (000100.CH) was the first major TV set brand to release a mini-LED based TV and is now on its 4th generation of such devices, while major competitor Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) has recently released it 2nd generation Mini-LED TV lineup.   TCL has approached the Mini-LED/QD TV market differently than its competitors, pricing its sets considerably below major brands to generate high unit volumes and the most recent additions are more of the same.  While we don’t yet have full specifications to compare against for the TCL line, we can give some approximation as to the comparable sets in the Samsung line, which points out that price difference.  Again, the TCL and Samsung sets do not have the same feature sets so a point-by-point comparison is not being made here, just a rough idea as to the price points and the TVs have yet