Vizio 60-Inch Smart TV Tumbles to $799, After $200 Instant Rebate
Vizio slashed the price on its top-selling E601I-A3 60-inch connected LCD TV through a $200 instant rebate, in a move that may possibly ignite a new post-Christmas price war, said retail and supplier executives we canvassed. Best Buy had the set priced online at $999 on Monday, moved it to $899 Tuesday and landed at $799 on Christmas Day. Walmart was promoting the 60-inch online at $798 on Christmas Day.
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The 1080p Vizio set, which carries a dealer cost of about $800, was promoted by Walmart in Black Friday ads at $688. Regional retailers we polled said the recent price moves were limited to Best Buy and Walmart and that the Vizio 60-inch remains scheduled to drop to $799 as part of a separate month-long $100 instant rebate program that’s slated for Jan. 22-Feb. 23. The LED-backlit E601 will be replaced by a new model in April at $899, retailers said. A Vizio spokesman declined to comment. Best Buy and Walmart didn’t comment.
Retailers collectively sold about 160,000 of the 60-inch Vizio sets during Thanksgiving week, with Walmart accounting for a big portion of the sales, one retailer told us, citing NPD as the source. Stephen Baker, NPD vice president-industry analysis, declined to comment on that specific citation.
There has been a lot of action in the 60-inch screen size segment since pricing fell below the $1,000 benchmark and removed a key psychological barrier for many consumers pondering a larger-screen upgrade, said retailers we surveyed. Vizio initially positioned the E601 with a $999 retail price before an instant rebate. But Sharp recently moved its LC-60LE650U 60-inch smart TV to $999 after a $200 instant rebate that expires Saturday, retailers said. Sharp is expected to revive the instant rebate program in the late-January run-up to the Super Bowl, retailers said. Samsung has remained within striking distance with its UN60FH6200FXZA 60-inch smart TV retailing for $1,099. Samsung representatives didn’t say whether it plans any price moves on that model.
CE executives we polled said they see 48-to-49-inch screen sizes emerging next year as a new segment to replace the similarly priced 46-to-47-inch echelon, which has suffered amid falling prices for 50-inch models, CE executives said. Under that scenario, 50-inch likely will remain a bridge to 55-inch and larger sizes, they said. “The question is, now that you can cut these new panels for 48-inch and 49-inch, is there a need for 46-inch and 47-inch?” asked one retail executive, whose chain scaled back its assortment of 46-inch sets this year. “With this, you can consolidate the business a little and that appears to be the general direction manufacturers are taking. I would rather carry fewer SKUs and go deeper with them. It will help me control inventory, but we will have to see what the consumer thinks."
NPD’s Baker is among those who doubt the 48-to-49-inch segment will “do well, unless 50-inch and 51-inch migrates to something else to create separation” in pricing, he told us. Moreover, the sales trends in screen sizes just below 50-inch have not been favorable, he said. Unit sales in the 45-49-inch TV category fell 15.4 percent to 12 million sets in the 12-month period through November, NPD’s Baker said. That segment accounted for 7 percent of total U.S. TV sales in that period, down from 8.2 percent in the same period a year earlier, he said.