China's LCD giants turn the screw on TV prices
BOE, TCL CSOT and HKC have told Samsung, LG and Sony that LCD panel prices are going up, just as TV makers stock up for Christmas.
The three companies that make most of the world's big TV panels have started telling customers what the next batch will cost, and the answer is more. BOE, TCL CSOT and HKC have all sent price-adjustment notices to buyers including Samsung, LG and Sony.
What the panel makers told TV brands
BOE will apply its new prices from the fourth quarter, while TCL CSOT and HKC are raising prices on selected products from September, according to industry sources reported by The Elec. The notices land in the exact weeks TV brands buy for Christmas. Samsung, LG and the rest start locking in volumes for Black Friday and the year-end sales push from August and September, which leaves them little room to shop around or simply buy less.
This is not a shortage - it is a choice
Some Chinese LCD lines are running at utilisation rates of only about 70 per cent. Rather than flooding the market and pushing prices down further, the makers are holding output back to keep supply tight. That is the behaviour of a supplier confident it can defend a price rather than one chasing volume, and it follows years of consolidation: Omdia reckons the three companies now form an oligopoly, holding 70 to 85 per cent of the 65-, 75- and 85-inch panel market and close to all of the ultra-large sizes.
How China ended up setting the price of your TV
Scale and cheap shipments did it. Chinese makers added capacity aggressively and undercut everyone until LCD panel prices collapsed, at which point South Korea and Japan walked away from the least profitable parts of the business: Samsung Display stopped making LCD panels in 2022, and LG Display ended domestic TV LCD production before selling its Guangzhou plant. The companies that once made big flat panels relentlessly cheaper now control enough of the market to decide what they cost.
Our opinion
For a decade we treated falling TV prices as a law of physics. It was never physics; it was China buying market share with capacity, and that phase is done. The uncomfortable part is the timing: the makers can raise prices in the one quarter their customers cannot walk away, which suggests they have learned exactly how much leverage consolidation buys them. Retail prices probably will not jump this week - Samsung and LG will swallow some of it to keep Christmas promotions aggressive - but the direction is set, and the biggest screens, where Chinese suppliers are closest to unchallenged, are where the squeeze will show up first. Anyone eyeing an 85-inch screen might want to buy it before the January price lists do the arguing for them.