PCs, Printers, Cameras Led Black Friday Promotions

By Alan Wolf -- TWICE, 1/5/2006

San Diego — Personal computers, printers and digital cameras were the most frequently promoted CE products by national retail chains on Black Friday, a new study shows.

According to Current Analysis, a market research firm based here, one quarter of all day-after-Thanksgiving CE promotions featured PCs (desktops and notebooks), followed by printers (19 percent) and digital cameras (14 percent).

TVs were the fourth most frequently discounted category, at 13 percent of the total promotional mix. LCD displays dominated the TV segment (and the newspaper inserts) with 51 percent of Black Friday specials, led by Circuit City (28 percent), CompUSA (20 percent) and Best Buy (17 percent). Non-traditional channels also participated that day, with The Home Depot and Kohl's each offering 1 percent of LCD promotions. The most frequently football-ed panel sizes were 26W-inch and 32W-inch.

Plasma promotions represented 22 percent of the TV pie, with 42W-inch models dominating. Both Best Buy and Wal-Mart broke the $1,000 barrier on these size displays with enhanced definition models.

In PCs, the number of notebook promotions exceeded desktop promotions for the first time on Black Friday (51.5 percent to 48.5 percent). Nearly half of the notebooks sold for less than $750, and 15 percent sold for $500 or under. Lowest advertised price: A $199 Toshiba L25-S1193 with Celeron M 370 processor at Circuit City, with a one-year subscription to AOL.