Olympics spurs HD sales big time

[Elandyll]

http://www.smarthouse.com.au/TVs_And...7L5D6F3?page=1

Gold Medal Winning Performances From TV Sellers
By Branko Miletic | Monday | 11/08/2008


Forget about the swimming, basketball or even rowing, the gold medal winning performances are coming not from the Birds Nest in Beijing but rather from the retail floor in places like Nunawading.

Click to enlarge
Just prior to the Olympics, we had Sony and their Bravia/PS3 promotion, which according to the company resulted in the purchase of some 35,000 LCD TV's just prior to the start of the 2008 Olympic Games.

And over the past 2 weeks, vendors such as Panasonic have been selling flat screen TV's at a rate that would make even the most hardened retail cynic blush.

According to Panasonic MD Steve Rust, TV sales have gone through the roof.

"We've had growth figures exceeding 100 per cent over the past month", says Rust, adding that on top of those figures, "Blu-ray players and other TV peripherals have been at near sell-out levels for the past 6 weeks".

Another growth spurt has come from the digital camera sector, which Rust admits, he "can't explain why".

Regardless, from the retail side of things, Harvey Norman supremo Gerry Harvey says his stores have been selling LCD and Plasma panels hand over fist.

"Our store are reporting 10 to 30 per cent growth ob average- and it's all coming from TV sales", says Harvey, adding that, "during the Olympics, sales of just about everything is up".

Will this Olympic-driven TV boom continue until years end? Well Panasonic's Rust is optimistic and says that "after the Olympics you have the NRL finals, the AFL finals and then Christmas, which will all deliver good TV sales results for us".

As for Gerry Harvey, his view is a bit more circumspect. "It will be dead after the games are over", he says, although he does agree that Christmas may offer a bit of sales lift.

Buts it's the Olympics that are giving the gold-medal winning performances as Harvey notes that, "sales of everything are up, up, up now".

So perhaps a new sport at the 2012 London Olympics will be ‘Flat Panel TV Selling'.

[Bullseye]

Excellent news.

[jkwest]

wow...what better way to watch the fake fireworks on....

jkjk...I really enjoyed em.

[Bobby Henderson]

I've seen some pretty aggressive pricing specials on certain large LCD and plasma based TVs.

Back on Super Bowl weekend this past January I bought a 52" Sony Bravia XBR4 television at Circuit City for $2999 -a price nearly $1500 below MSRP. In June I saw the price of the same TV spike up to $3999 at Best Buy and Circuit City. A few days ago, the Sears store in the mall near where I live had the TV marked down to $2599 in relation to the start of the Olympics.

That's just one example of some of the price cut deals I've seen. I didn't look farther to see what sort of financing plans were available. During the last Super Bowl week stores like Best Buy and Circuit City had 3-year 0% interest financing deals along with the discounted price.

[Marquoz]

I just love the irony of reading this thread, and the thread right above it is "Low interest in Blu". With Blu-ray players being at nearly sold out levels, apparently that analyst was completely wrong.

[Rike255]

So perhaps a new sport at the 2012 London Olympics will be ‘Flat Panel TV Selling'.

HEY! What about the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver??!?!?! Jerk...