“We are not going for any price increase now for TV. Despite that, there has been an increase of 35 per cent in the past 30 days,” said SPPL Chief Executive Officer Avneet Singh Marwah.The government should bring TV manufacturing under the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme, a move which will make the Indian TV industry more competitive on the global stage, Marwah added.Panasonic India and South Asia President China led panel lamp factory manufactures and CEO Manish Sharma said, “Panel prices are rising continuously and so are the prices of TVs.”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.He added that the per-unit cost of TVs would go up by at least Rs 2,000-3,000 starting from April. We have already increased the prices by around 7-4 per cent in January and 3 per cent in February, because of the hike in panel prices,” said LG Electronics India Vice-President (Home Appliances) Vijay Babu.
The open-cell panel is an important part of TV manufacturing and covers around 60 per cent of the unit. Globally, panel market has slowed down. It is likely that TV prices may increase further by April.Besides, the government had also put imports of TV under a restricted category from free to promote domestic manufacturing.While South Korean brand LG said it will not increase the prices of its TV panels.”Currently, there is no alternative apart from China where all panel manufacturers are present.”Since 32 inch is the most-sold size in India, the price of a 32-inch screen size is expected to go up by Rs 5,000-6,000,” said Videotex International Group Director Arjun Bajaaj. It has been closely observed that only Chinese brands are getting better supply and price.TV is one of the largest segments under the entire domain of appliance and consumer electronics, accounting for a volume of almost 17 million with an estimated sale value of almost Rs 25,000 crore.Marwah added that the open-cell market is dominated by Chinese manufacturers and alleged that TV makers from China are getting better prices from them.”
The prices of open-cell have gone up tremendously and the trends are that it would keep on increasing,” said Braganza adding that “if that continues, we would have to continuously increase prices”. Now, importer of TV has to seek a licence from the commerce ministrys DGFT for the imports.New Delhi: Prices of LED TVs are set to rise further from April as the cost of open-cell panels has gone up in the global markets by up to 35 per cent in the past one month.Videotex International, which owns Daiwa and Shinco brands, said the industry has never seen or expected such a price increase of open-cell.”When being asked about the quantum on increase, he said, “Seeing current trends, it might go up 5-7 per cent more by April..”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.Brands including Panasonic, Haier and Thomson are considering to increase prices from April this year, while some like LG have already raised prices due to hike in prices of open-cell.
Companies import television panels in an open-cell state, which require further assembling with value addition before being shipped to market for sale.Super Plastronics Pvt Ltd (SPPL), the brand licensee for French Electronics brand Thomson and US-based brand Kodak, said there is a scarcity of open cell in the market and the prices have almost gone up by three-folds in the past eight months.”Expressing similarly, Haier Appliances India President Eric Braganza said there is no other way than to increase the prices.It further 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.Last year, the government had restored the import duty on open cell. It had re-imposed 5 per cent customs duty on the import of open-cell for TVs from October 1, 2020, after having nil duty for a year.According to a joint report by the industry body, CEAMA and Frost & Sullivan, the TV market is expected to grow to 284 lakh units in 2024-25 from 175 lakh units in 2018-19
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