M+E Daily

High Hopes for 4K TV, Blu-ray This Week

According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), an estimated 137.4 million Americans will shop either online or in stores during this week’s Thanksgiving weekend. And according to the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) a record-setting 116 million of those will be buying some sort of technology.

In the home entertainment space, Hollywood is hoping a lot of those consumers invest in 4K Ultra High-Def (UHD) TVs, UHD Blu-ray Disc players, and the software to match.

“By all accounts, the 2016 Black Friday week looks like it will be a record breaker for tech,” said Shawn DuBravac, chief economist for CTA, said in a statement. “Even with delayed promotions from retailers and manufacturers, and signs of pre-election uncertainty, we expect consumer enthusiasm for technology purchases during the holidays to be higher than ever.”

Microsoft and its UHD Blu-ray-enabled Xbox One S figures to play a big role in pushing the high-def format, with the company already offering the gaming console for $249, a $50 discount, Nov. 24-28. And before that, Microsoft is offering $50 off the 1 TB version of the system.

The Samsung UBD-K8500 — the very first UHD Blu-ray player to be released earlier this year — is being made available for less than $200 at Amazon, down from its original $399 list price. Additionally, Amazon is selling 4K TVs at deep discounts, with one 43-inch set going for $200, a 55-inch LG set going for $400, a standard Blu-ray player priced at $50.

“Customers want to shop anywhere, any time, and any way, especially during the five super popular days for online shopping running from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday,” said Amazon VP Steve Shure. “At Amazon, we keep finding new ways to make holiday shopping fun, easy, and accessible including new innovations in voice shopping with Alexa, super-fast Prime shipping, and mobile shopping with the free Amazon shopping app.”

At Walmart, the No. 1 retailer a Phillips 55-inch 4K TV for $300, a Samsung 50-inch 4K TV for $400, the Xbox One S White 500 GB Battlefield bundle for $249 and the Xbox One S 500 GB Minecraft console with a bonus controller for $279, and discounts on more than 750 DVDs and Blu-rays.

“I said it before and I will say it again, we will win the season on price – on Black Friday, on Cyber Monday and every day before and after,” said Steve Bratspies, chief merchandising officer for Walmart U.S. “That means delivering the Black Friday deals we’re known for in stores, online and on our app. And, we’ve secured significant availability of these items. We pride ourselves on not being the retailer who advertises a great price and then only has a few available.”

Meanwhile, Best Buy will have a Toshiba 49-inch 4K TV for $200, a Samsung 55-inch LED 4K TV for $480, UHD Blu-rays marked down to $18, and the Samsung 4K UHD Blu-ray Player for $200.

The CTA expects 4.5 million 4K TVs to be sold during the holiday shopping season, and, overall, Americans are expected to spend an average of $935 each, according to the NRF, a jump of 4% from 2015.