CRI听力:3D TV Price Dive in China

As the National Day holiday approaches, a period which traditionally sees high-demand for household electronics appliances, competition on the price of 3D TVs is starting to heat up. When 3D televisions were first launched in China they were regarded as a luxury electric appliance, due to their jaw-dropping prices. But a saleswoman from a Tianjin based electronic appliance store provides an example to indicate that the situation has changed, and that the prices of 3D TVs have been cut on a large scale.

"This type of 3D TV was sold for around 26 thousand yuan, but now the price has been cut to just 19 thousand yuan following a continuous price-drop."

Manager Duan Dequan from the same store says that some of the larger screen 3D TVs have seen the sharpest drop in prices.

"Take the 55 inch 3D TV as an example. It was priced at about 50 thousand yuan on its debut in the market. But now you can easily get the same size 3D TV, a domestic brand, for just over 10 thousand yuan."

Since late last year, the average sales price of 3D TVs has fallen nearly 20 to 40 percent nationwide. Some market insiders have pointed out that many brands hope to gain a larger share of the market by slashing their prices. A sales manager from Tianjin says that the core technology of manufacturing 3D TVs is no longer monopolized by foreign manufacturers.

"As domestic brand TV manufacturers gradually get hold of a higher-level of core technology, they can start to reduce their production costs. They no longer need to rely on imported technology, and instead have their own research and development ability."

Another major reason for the fall in prices is the lack of original 3D content. Many customers complain that they rarely use the 3D function, and regret spending such large amounts of money on something that cannot be used frequently.

"Only a few movies or TV programs are produced in 3D format. The common TV programs we receive are not transmitted by a 3D signal."

In order to solve this problem, some manufacturers have offered special technology allowing viewers to covert the 2D format of movies into 3D. However, this solution is still not meeting the demands of many viewers who want to watch 3D pictures at any time. Manager Duan Dequan explains.

"The transformed content still doesn't provide a 100 percent 3D effect. Even though 2D content can be converted into a 3D format, the final effect is still somewhat different from original 3D content."

Sales managers have said that consumers who buy 3D TVs will benefit twice thanks to offers on related products, such as 3D glasses and high-definition multimedia players. After discount, the price of a 3D TV will be similar to that of an LED or LCD television set. Some market insiders predict that prices will continue to drop below 10 thousand yuan as competition becomes fiercer among TV manufacturers later this year.

For CRI, I'm Liu Min.