QD/OLED Price Cuts?
The headlines in a South Korean tech paper indicated that a research firm had discovered that Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) was selling its 65” QD/OLED TV (S95B) at a price $200 below that of its main competitor LG Electronics (066590.KS) 65” W-OLED TV (Model G2), which would imply Samsung is willing to keep this new technology priced as a direct alternative to LG’s OLED TV products, regardless of how LG prices its comparative products. With the original 65” QD/OLED price of $3,000, Samsung has already reduced the price, which remains at $2,600 on their website and within a few dollars of that more major retailers. That said, we did find one on-line vendor that was offering the unit for an unusually low price of $2,049 out of Hollywood, Florida, although neither sales nor support lines seem to be working.
While we do expect that Samsung will try to remain competitive with LG’s OLED TV offerings with LG’s G2 series priced at $1,999 (55”) and $2,599 (65”), we were unable to find the offer mentioned in the trade press, although we expect there will be a few ‘door buster’ type sales over the next few months that might get the price a bit below the LG range, but we expect Samsung has built-in some substantial controls as to how the QD/OLED TVs are priced in order not to create unfair competition between vendors. We believe it is frowned upon for brands to officially lock retailers into a price but we know of a number of instances where large brands have castigated those who beak the ‘suggested’ price points. We do expect that Samsung will have some room to lower QD/OLED prices as it improves yield, and we would expect the company is still experimenting with how it is going to present the new technology from a pricing standpoint, so there might be a point where Samsung is willing to sell for little or no margin to make sure it sells out the targeted number of units before year end. We are still watching…
While we do expect that Samsung will try to remain competitive with LG’s OLED TV offerings with LG’s G2 series priced at $1,999 (55”) and $2,599 (65”), we were unable to find the offer mentioned in the trade press, although we expect there will be a few ‘door buster’ type sales over the next few months that might get the price a bit below the LG range, but we expect Samsung has built-in some substantial controls as to how the QD/OLED TVs are priced in order not to create unfair competition between vendors. We believe it is frowned upon for brands to officially lock retailers into a price but we know of a number of instances where large brands have castigated those who beak the ‘suggested’ price points. We do expect that Samsung will have some room to lower QD/OLED prices as it improves yield, and we would expect the company is still experimenting with how it is going to present the new technology from a pricing standpoint, so there might be a point where Samsung is willing to sell for little or no margin to make sure it sells out the targeted number of units before year end. We are still watching…
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