Flat Screens Prices To Be Lowered In Thailand

[Jingthing]

According to the included Nation article, because of shifting manufacturing to Thailand, there should be real price breaks in flat screen tvs. I haven't seen this at all. I have been eyeing the 40 inch Samsungs LCD 5000-1; they seem to be 90,000 baht plus. Is that really a price break for a high end 40 inch Samsung?

The article mentions that Tatung offers a great deal on 32 inch screens. Any comment on that brand? Where can I see their models in Pattaya?

from THE NATION

LCD TELEVISIONS

Fresh battlefield for flat-panel TVs

Stiffer competition looms as Japanese makers plump for Thailand as their manufacturing hub for sets of the future

Major consumer-electronics companies including, Panasonic, Sony, Toshiba, Samsung and Tatung, have shifted their manufacture of LCD televisions to

Thailand, creating a new battlefield for flat-panel display products along with the gradual transition of local broadcasts from analogue to fully digital.

Sony and Samsung relocated their production of LCD receivers to Thailand in April, Panasonic last month. Panasonic began production of its Viera 26- and 32-inch LCD sets at its

Bang Phli plant following a Bt35-million investment. The locally produced receivers will replace Panasonic imports from Japan and China, according to

Daizo Ito, chief executive officer of Panasonic Group in Thailand, a local subsidiary of Matsushita.

"Producing these in Thailand will reduce their local price by 20 per cent as we will no longer be burdened with import tariffs. This means we can

sell at a competitive price against rivals such as Sony and Samsung, which have already moved their manufacturing

facilities to Thailand," said Ito, adding that Panasonic would next year begin exporting LCD sets to neighbouring markets such as Laos, Cambodia,

Vietnam and India. "We expect to increase the market share of Panasonic LCD receivers in Thailand from 6 per cent to about 20 per cent by the end of October," said

Ito, adding that total demand for LCD televisions in Thailand was expected to reach between 55,000 and 60,000 units this year, four times higher than

the 14,000-15,000 sold last year.

Kazuo Suyama, managing director of Sony Thai Co Ltd, said Sony had recently expanded manufacturing lines by starting new production lines of

Bravia LCD receivers and Grand Wega LCD projection televisions at the Sony Technology (Thailand) factory in Ayutthaya. "We would like to retain our

top share of the AV [audio-visual] market, and to do so we need cooperation and support from all our partners, such as staff, dealers and even

headquarters, which helps with product development to suit local markets and expansion of production facilities for locally based factories," said

Suyama. He said that fortunately Sony's brand image was very strong and popular with consumers around the world, but to maintain or even improve that image

was of course not easy, indeed challenging. "The Sony brand has been established for almost 60 years now, and Sony has a very broad range of customers across all age groups, though the

perception of Sony by each generation may be different. Therefore we cannot use 'Sony' alone to communicate with all of them: we have to focus on

communicating with them through our strong sub-brands like Walkman, Vaio, Bravia, Wega, Handycam, Cybershot and PlayStation," Suyama said.

He added that all these sub-brands ultimately strengthened the Sony brand image. Sony, he said, will not go into the price game but offer high-value

products that match customers' requirements at a reasonable price.

Hidenori Matsui, president of Toshiba Thailand Co Ltd, said that while sales of the firm's projection televisions were expected to decline, the

company was going to catch up through a huge increase in sales of its Regza flat-panel display televisions. "We expect our sales of flat-panel display receivers, both LCD and plasma,

to jump fivefold to 5,500 units this year," said Matsui, adding that Toshiba would this year concentrate more on bigger screens with better

picture quality and on other high-end products and would focus more on AV and IT products and benefit from the wide range of products it already had.

Matsui said the total market for AV products had grown by 5 per cent in the first six months of this year to Bt18 billion in sales value.

"Flat-panel display televisions are very new products, and all companies are investing in them," said Matsui, adding that in the past 18 months the cost of panels

had been falling and every manufacturer was concentrating on how to boost volume to save costs.

"Toshiba will focus on maintaining a competitive price in the market, along with innovative features," said Matsui.

He said the strengths of Toshiba were technology and innovations in product quality, picture and sound quality transferred from its headquarters in

Tokyo. "We have a long history in the development of colour televisions. The goal is to communicate our strengths to Thai consumers," said Matsui.

Charlie Lan, president of Tatung (Thailand) Co Ltd, said Tatung had been operating as an original-equipment manufacturer for more than 10 brands in

Japan and Europe so that the company had extensive knowledge and experience in technology and marketing trends.

"We also have very good vertical integration capability. We also have our own panels, printed circuit boards, plastic cabinets and even remote

controls. At our factory we can do everything by ourselves. "This gives us a great advantage in the brand war as we can provide

products at competitive prices on time to market," said Lan, adding that Tatung needed only six months from a product idea to a market launch.

Lan said Tatung could offer 32-inch LCD televisions with the same quality and features 30-50 per cent cheaper than its competitors.

"We also give our customers more choice. We give them both LCD and plasma receivers, quite unlike leading brands like Sony, which focuses on LCD, or

Panasonic, which concentrates on plasma, because they have already invested in the technology," said Lan.

[jcgodber]

For what its worth, I have been told that the prices will drop substantially after the first of the year. I am looking to buy a 50 to 55 inch flat screen.

Jim

[Jingthing]

Was that a Chang vision?

Why would they drop the first of the year?

I am holding off buying based on that article though.

[astral]

An interesting journalistic style, one sentence per paragraph.

I have squashed it up a bit to avoid taking 3 screens for the post.

[The Coder]

The article seems to be more of a marketing spin than anything. It says prices will drop 20%, but prices drop naturally like this every year. 20% won't close the gap with prices of the same product exported from Thailand and purchased in the USA way cheaper. This dual pricing paradigm can be applied to about anything, even your basic hard drive at Pantip plaza made in Thailand is more expensive than mail ordering it in the US. I wish someone could explain this, or better yet put an end to it!

Yeah, if you want to buy a LCD in Thailand of course it would be wise to wait for it to drop 20% first, but by no means will you be getting a bargain.

[Rimmer]

An interesting journalistic style, one sentence per paragraph.

I have squashed it up a bit to avoid taking 3 screens for the post.

3 x 55" screens right

[Jingthing]

Its all relative.

[Firefoxx]

Prices always drop. 32" LCDs used to be *AT LEAST* 100k baht only a couple of years ago. Now you can find them for half that. It will continue to drop, regardless of the move to Thailand. Also, any major move of that type will take quite a long time to have any real effect on retail prices.

[phazey]

just need to sit closer to the tv tbh (can't call it "the box now" )

PC lcd's are dirt cheap now, which is promising. I've just buried a 21" CRT (died) and looked at a 21" LCD for my home machine/tv needs - 14k baht....nice i think.

no point in buying a plasma/large lcd until there is HD-TV in asia/thailand tbh.....then you have to sit further away ....

[Firefoxx]

You want dirt cheap? Look at the much-touted Dell 24" (1920x1200, and can accept many different inputs). It's around $600 from Dell USA, and if you get an online coupon from Ebay (for 99 cents), you can knock another 100 bucks off for a grand total of 500 bucks. That's around 19,000 baht for a very very good 24" monitor. Expect to pay around 3x that much for the same thing in Thailand. The 30" dell, with the same coupon, goes for around 1 grand.

The only point to buying large screen plasmas/LCDs would be if you had the content to view on it, or needed ths space savings. I wanted both, so I bought one.

[sylvafern]

I've been looking at flat screen off and on TVs for almost a year now and the are WAY cheaper than they were when I first started looking. You just need to look around for the best price, although even places like Central, The Mall and Homepro have good deals. Also look at what freebies are being thrown in. Homepro usually has heaps of extra stuff - DVD recorders, home theatres, vouchers, etc. If one of the freebies is something you also want you could be saving yourself some money. e.g. a deal I saw recently for a 32" LCD (name brand but forget which) was around 47,000 baht but it came with a free flat screen 17" monitor which I also want to get ... i know they're not too expensive now, but effectively it made the TV around 40,000 baht as I would have been buying the monitor anyhow (altho have bought neither as yet cos can't actually decide whether I want a 32" or a 37"!)

[udon]

PC lcd's are dirt cheap now, which is promising. I've just buried a 21" CRT (died) and looked at a 21" LCD for my home machine/tv needs - 14k baht....nice i think.

Hi Phazey,

what brand and model was it?

[The Coder]

I've been looking at flat screen off and on TVs for almost a year now and the are WAY cheaper than they were when I first started looking...

No argument there, but...

a deal I saw recently for a 32" LCD (name brand but forget which)...effectively it made the TV around 40,000 baht

Even that is not tempting to me. I'd rather buy a 32" LCD in the US, put it in my suitcase, and put the 20,000 baht I saved in my wallet. The price gap is still too high for me to even consider a local purchase. A 20K baht convenience fee makes no sense to me. But I know others who will spend over 100K more than the US and claim it is worth it. To each his own.

Edited November 4, 2006 by The Coder