New Technology TV

As electronics manufacturers are developing more efficient manufacturing processes that are causing the prices of high definition television sets to drop, a number of other factors are aligning in the marketplace that suggest huge improvements in the profitability of the products as well as the ability for consumers to get the HDTV sets at lower costs. Recently, a report was produced providing evidence that people throughout North America are spending more on television sets than they were at the beginning of the year. Another separate report provided evidence that the average amount spent on television sets dropped slightly. Neither of these statistics make any sense in light of the fact that the prices of high definition television sets have dropped between twenty five and thirty percent this year. That is, they don't make any sense if people are buying just one set. One conclusion drawn by Phillip Swann of TVPredictions.com is that people are actually taking advantage of falling prices on HDTV sets in order to purchase more than one. If that's the case, then many manufacturers and retailers could see some pretty remarkable profits despite the decrease in price of High Definition Television sets.

Statistics about the actual number of sets sold backs this up. For example, according to iSuppli, about twice as many television set larger than thirty inches were sold during the third quarter of this year as were sold during the third quarter of last year. The cost of Digital TV sets in the thirty to thirty four inch category fell by about twenty five percent between the third quarter of last year and the third quarter of this year. Sets between forty and forty four inches fell in price even more- by thirty eight percent- during the same time period.

The idea that manufactures and retailers are making more money because of these trends was supported by a recent report form Matsushita, the parent company of Panasonic, that stated that it nearly doubled its second quarter profits because of increased sales of Plasma Screen TV's. Matsushita claims to have sold almost eight hundred thousand Plasma screen HDTV's, which is over twice as many as the three hundred and fifty thousand sold by its nearest competitor, LG. As more Plasma screen TV's are sold over the next year, Matsushita expects to sell around eight million units total.

High definition television sets aren't the only type of high definition equipment that's expected to come down in price over the next year. Supporting equipment like High Definition DVD players are also becoming cheaper. Samsung's BD-P1000 Blu-ray HDTV DVD player is being sold by Amazon.com for approximately seven hundred and thirty dollars. That's almost three hundred dollars less than the suggested retail price of nine hundred and ninety nine dollars. Just because this unit costs less than other Blu-ray players, that doesn't mean that it's short on features. The Samsung BD-P1000 can also up-convert normal DVD's so that they look almost as good as real High Definition Television on an HDTV screen. This could give the Blu-ray format a slight edge over its rival HD-DVD format which is made by Toshiba and supported by Microsoft.

While many big box retailers might be upset by the an outfit like Amazon.com undercutting their prices, price reductions can ultimately be a good thing for consumers, retailers, and manufacturers alike.