LED TV prices set to rise from April; manufacturers say market dominated by Chinese

LED televisions prices in India are set to increase by up to Rs 2,000-6,000 per-unit from April. Brands like Panasonic, Haier and Thomson are considering increasing the prices of televisions from April this year as the cost of open-cell panels has risen by up to 35 per cent in the global markets in the past one month.

"Panel prices are rising continuously and so are the prices of TVs. It is likely that TV prices may increase further by April," Manish Sharma, President and Chief Executive at Panasonic India and South Asia, told news agency PTI.

The open-cell panel is an important part of TV manufacturing and covers around 60 per cent of the final product. Companies import television panels in an open-cell state, which require further assembling before being shipped for sale.

Super Plastronics Pvt, the brand licensee for US-based brand Kodak and French Electronics brand Thomson, said there is a scarcity of open cells in the market and the prices have gone up by three-folds in the past eight months.

Avneet Singh Marwah, CEO, Super Plastronics, said, "From the past eight months, there has been a month-on-month increase in panel prices, we have witnessed more than 350 per cent spike in LED TV panels. Globally, the panel market has slowed down. Despite that, there has been an increase of 35 per cent in the past 30 days." The per-unit cost of TVs would go up by at least Rs 2,000-3,000 starting from April, he further added.

Marwah also said that the open-cell market is dominated by Chinese manufacturers and alleged that TV makers from China are getting better prices from them. "This has been the narrative especially after the pandemic, where Chinese TV brands, which have been flooded in the Indian market to counter Indian manufacture brands by better price and supply," he added.

The government should bring TV manufacturing under the production-linked incentive scheme, a move which will make the Indian TV industry more competitive on the global stage, said Marwah.

TV is one of the largest segments under the appliance and consumer electronics, accounting for almost 17 million units with an estimated sale value of around Rs 25,000 crore. According to a report by the industry body, CEAMA and Frost & Sullivan, the TV market is likely to grow to 2.84 crore units in 2024-25.

The report also said that the open cell panel and the chips of the TV are predominantly imported from China besides some other markets as Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam and only the last-mile assembly is done in India.

(With PTI inputs)

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