Samsung has unsettled the TV industry in Australia scooping up as much as 45% market share after introducing a budget range of TV’s six weeks ago that have hurt the sales of competitors but lined the pockets of retailers claim sources.
The strategy was designed to take on the likes of Hisense and TCL who gained market share last year.
In response, to discounting by the Chinese brands Samsung launched a range of sub $2,000 TV’s as we exclusively tipped last year and within days retailers were heavily promoting the Samsung 65” RU 1000 which was selling for sub $1,900.
The big incentive for retailers has been a 30% margin which other manufacturers were unable or refused to offer. 
This is a strategy that Samsung has used before overseas with insiders tipping that they will shortly move to try and reduce the margin to 20% and then 15% in coming months.
In the USA retailers who baulked at the margin cut after taking the higher margin, saw the same TV’s being sold at discount retailers the equivalent of Big W and Aldi, in the US it was Walmart who was one of the chosen retailers.
According to competitors Samsung has not only stripped sales but made it hard to sell premium priced models a move that has resulted in a discount war among several brands.
According to Angus Jones the General Manager of Marketing at LG the battle has been “brutal”.
“Right now, you can buy a TV at wholesale prices” he said.
Japanese brands such as Panasonic and Sony have been hit particularly hard as they have not had the TV models to compete.
ChannelNews understands that Panasonic who will next week launch a new range of 2019 TV’s may have already been dropped at JB Hi Fi with the Japanese Companies TV’s no longer listed on the JB Hi Fi web site, Panasonic product is still being sold at The Good Guys.
Panasonic when approached did not deny the claim, however there is every possibility that JB Hi Fi could range Panasonic’s new 2019 offering.
Recently Harvey Norman appointed a new buyer with several TV distributors whose products are not sold at the mass retailer and are struggling at other retailers, now making new attempts to get listed at the big CE retailer.
The only problem is that at Harvey Norman it’s the steering committee that makes the key decisions not the buyer as a former Sony executive found out recently.
Among the winners outside of the Samsung offering is Australian Company Tempo who range of TV’s were already competitively priced.
Among the Tempo range are Hitachi and Philips TV’s that are sold by JB Hi Fi and The Good Guys, , Polaroid which is sold at Big W, Akai at Harvey Norman and Bauhn TV’s that are sold at Aldi.
Samsung have not commented for this story.
