There are inflation and cost-of-living squeezes happening all over the place, but one of the (relatively) bright spots for this has been affordable TV prices – due to continuing LCD price drops, the potential for super-cheap TVs towards the end of this year means that people trying to keep their budgets low might still be able to get a great new 4K TV within their price range if they need one.
Except that might turn against one part of the market, apparently. A report at Digitimes says that Chinese LCD panel manufacturers (which are a huge portion of the market, though certainly don't have a monopoly on it) are looking at raising the prices of 32-inch TV panels next year.
The best 32-inch TVs are popular not only for bedrooms and offices, but also for students and young people with small living spaces, and for older people who may also have limited space, but also may just not be comfortable with the bigger-screen TVs that the industry steers most people towards these days.
In the case of both younger and older people, we're talking about those who are most likely to be on an inflexible income – fixed pensions, or the generally inadequate wages that so many teens and young adults receive these days.
So a potential rise of the price of the small TVs that are most useful to these people would be a blow, right when they'll also be bitten by rising winter energy bills.
It means that anyone considering this kind of TV in the future might want to look extra-hard at Black Friday TV deals (and the the sales season around it) this year, because if the Digitimes report is correct, new models released in 2023 may start from higher prices.
The TV deals probably won't be restricted to Black Friday, though – according to stats from Adobe, the largest average TV discounts were actually found in early December last year, though the average discount on Black Friday itself was very nearly as large. It just means that if you don't find something in the Black Friday deals, it's not the end; you might still find it shortly after.
