​While we seem to be obsessive about Mini-LED TVs, we justify that preoccupation with the fact that while Chinese brand TCL (000100.CH) was the first to offer consumer Mini-LED TVs and is in their 3rd iteration of the technology, TV market leaders Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) and LG Electronics (066570.KS) are in early release mode for such products.  As we have noted, Samsung released, at least announced, its consumer Mini-LED/QD TV line earlier this year but did not reveal set pricing until the 3rd week in May.  Since then there have been a number of price reductions across both the 8K and 4K Mini-LED/QD line which we have noted a number of times, the latest on Monday. 
While LG Electronics has also announced their Mini-LED/QD TV line, those sets are just beginning to appear and pricing is beginning to surface.  LG seems to have learned from Samsung’s obvious mis-pricing and has priced both its 8K and 4K Mini-LED/QD lines at or below Samsung’s original entry prices, with the 8K line being significantly discounted from Samsung’s original and current prices, and the 4K line is priced roughly the same as Samsung’s current pricing, sort of a tacit acceptance of what both companies believe to be acceptable prices.
As we have noted before, these sets are not exact duplicates, with some features available to a particular brand or model, and Samsung has considerably more diversity in terms of the number of offerings, 15 to LG’s 6, but the basic features such as resolution and size are comparable, and the table below makes those comparisons.  LG offers the only 120Hz. refresh rate models, but based on the original Samsung price, the LG models average 23.1% lower in price, while against the current price they are only 10.3% lower on average, with all of the discount coming from the 8K line, which is priced 22.4% below Samsung’s current price on average.  TCL’s Mini-LED/QD offerings are also available but only at 4K resolution and range in price from $3,000 (75” High-end) to $950 (55” Low-end).  LG will begin making the sets available in the US in July.  A more detailed price/feature comparison is available on request.

As we have noted, now on three separate occasions, Samsung’s (005930.KS) line of Mini-LED/QD TVs has been the focus of discounting, despite the fact that the product line has only been available for a few weeks.  The new sets were announced on January 6, but were not in consumer’s hands until March 16, at least some were, with the rest becoming available in the US in May and June.  On 5/20, 6/2, and 6/24 we noted that Samsung has been discounting various sets in the 32 model line, and has now added more sets to the list of discounted items.
With this last set of price changes which occurred on Saturday, 23 of the 32 models (71.9%) have been discounted at least once, while 11 (28.1%) have been discounted twice, and 3 (9.4%) have been discounted three times., and the average discount among the Mini-LED TVs is now 15.5% (up from 14.9% last week) from their original prices, while those that are QD only have seen an average discount of 9.4% (up from 7.5% last week).
As we have noted previously, we believe the reason that Samsung is being so aggressive on pricing with this new TV line is that it was overpriced from the beginning.  Samsung typically gets a bit of a premium for its sets, perhaps not quite as much as Sony (SNE), but more than its Chinese brand competitors.  Since this is technically Samsung’s first shot at a full Mini-LED/QD line, they had no way to gauge where consumers would buy, and took a shot with higher prices.  We expect as the quarter progressed, Samsung discovered that sales were not quite as robust as expected and began the process of offering discounts, and as we get closer to the end of the quarter, those discounts get closer together and a bit more aggressive in order to book as many units as possible.
As Chinese TV brand TCL (000100.CH) was the first to offer a mini-LED TV to retail customers, and is already on their 3rd iteration, and typically Chinese brands tend to be lower priced than those from South Korea.  In order to illustrate how far apart pricing between Samsung’s Mini/QD line and TCL’s, we offer the table below which compares TCL’s current offerings with those of Samsung.  We note that absolute comparisons are not possible as each model has a variety of features and specifications, but at least from the standpoint of the sets being at a minimum of 4K and containing both Mini-LED backlights and quantum dot enhancement, the comparisons are similar.  While TCL only offers single models of each, Samsung offers two price points, both of which we list, along with Samsung’s original and current prices, and the premium associated with Samsung’s current prices over TCL.

We have noted that Samsung’s (005930.KS) Mini-LED/Quantum Dot TV line struck us as being a bit on the expensive side, especially when compared to TCL’s (000100.CH) Mini-LED TV line, but apples-to-apples comparisons are hard to make given the number of features available to each model.  That said, we have also noted that Samsung has already begun to discount a portion of the new TV line, and in some cases more than once, with the most recent reductions being during the last 24 hours.  While this is a bit unusual given that a number of the sets have only been available for a few weeks and display and component costs have been rising quickly, the fact that Samsung has been so aggressive toward TV pricing would indicate that they priced the new line too high and that they are searching for price points where the new models become more attractive to consumers.
The discounts vary across the line but of the 32 models in the 2021 offering, 18 (56.25%) have seen a change in price thus far and 10 (31.25%) have seen two price reductions, while one model (3.13%) has seen three price reductions.  Looking at just the 15 models that feature both Mini-LED and quantum dots (includes both 8K and 4K sets), 3 (20%) have seen one price reduction, 8 (53.3%) have seen two price reductions, and 1 (6.7%) have seen 3 price reductions, meaning 80% of the models with Mini-LEDs and quantum dots have seen at least one price reduction.  Finally, looking at just those sets that feature both Mini-LED and Quantum Dots but are 4K resolution, all 5 have seen at least one price reduction.
In this last set of price reductions Samsung began lowering the price on what would be considered low to mid-priced 4K QD TVs for the first time, albeit making small reductions between 3.7% and 6.7%, but some of the more feature-rich sets have seen total reductions as high as 24.0%, with the average reduction among the Mini-LED/QD sets being 14.9%, and among just those with quantum dots -7.5%.  We believe these offerings are particular to targeted Samsung.com customers and don’t always show up on popular CE product sites such as Best Buy (BBY), but are likely available to any customer that inquires.  That said, as the US TV market has been the strongest globally for the last few quarters, we expect Samsung assumed that strength would carry through much of the new line, but we still believe that Samsung was overly aggressive toward pricing in the US this year, particularly with its Mini-LED sets, and is now bringing in pricing to more reasonable levels.  

Mini-LED TVs are a relatively new item for most TV brands and Samsung is no exception.  When they released their first true consumer mini-LED series earlier this year, we noted that prices seemed excessively high, given that Chinese brand TCL (000100.CH) had been offering a lower priced mini-LED line for over a year.  We have updated Samsung’s mini-LED pricing twice since then, with price reductions of as much as 11.1% on some models.  We now post another update with Samsung taking prices on its mini-LED/QD line down further, which points to our original conclusion that the initial prices were way too high to be competitive. 
In this round Samsung now sets prices on some models in the mini-LED line down 20% from initial pricing, and while we expect much of that initial pricing was ‘trial balloon’ pricing, these are certainly noticeable reductions.  Here are the models that have been reduced and by how much.  Those in yellow have been reduced three times.

On May 20 we listed Samsung Electronics’ (005930.KS) new TV line-up, or at least those that were 4K or higher resolution and were designed with quantum dots and/or mini-LEDs.  Only 6 days later, we noted that Samsung had already began discounting 10 of the new models and we note today that Samsung has continued to reduce prices on sets in those lines.  Again we find this surprising as it is early in the product cycle and most of these would be considered premium products, but China’s TCL (000100.CH) has been producing Mini-LED TVs for a number of years and is on their 3rd generation.  While they are not yet available in the US (older models are), they will certainly challenge Samsung as to price, and LG Electronics (066570.KS) will also be releasing a series of mini-LED/quantum dot TVs through the summer and the remainder of the year, all of which have been announced.
We note that in the previous set of discounts the focus was on 65” and 55” sets, while the most recent discounts were focused on 75” and 85” sets, although not exclusively.  LGE’s top-of-the-line 8K 86” Mini-LED/QD TV is priced at $8,000, $1,000 lower than Samsung’s, with the 75” model $2,000 lower (now $1,500) and the 65” model $1,500 (now $1,300) so Samsung’ pricing is certainly higher. The discounts averaged 7.2% in the previous tranche and in the current, 8.6%, with those that have been discounted twice averaging 11.1% from the initial price.
TCL, who has been producing Mini-LED TVs longer than either South Korean producer, does not yet sell this year’s mini-LED/QD TV in the US, but last year’s models, which list for $1,600 (75”), $1,100 (65”), and $800 (55”) are priced far lower than either competitor, and have attracted considerable attention with consumers.  A number of those sets are being offered at a premium on Amazon (AMZN) as they have been in short supply since their release last September.
The updated table with Samsung 2021 models and discounts is below and shows all of Samsung’s models for this year, with those that have just become discounted highlighted in red and those that were previously discounted but remain the same in blue, and those that have been discounted twice in yellow.