U.S. consumer electronics prices dropped steeply in November as retailers kicked off holiday sales by slashing prices on products such as notebook computers, digital cameras and flash memory cards, according to an industry study prepared for Reuters.
U.S. prices fell more than 6.2 percent in November, the biggest decline in 2004, and 18.3 percent from a year earlier, spurred by promotions on "Black Friday," the traditional start of the shopping season, according to NPD Consumer Electronics Price Watch.
The report, prepared for Reuters and released on Friday, showed the price for a market basket of the 27 most popular electronics goods fell to $10,790 in November.
NPD analyst Stephen Baker said that while dramatic "Black Friday" discounting is not typically sustained, it often gives clues to retailers' plans for coming months.
"Products chosen for promotional pricing activity like this are likely to see a continuation of that promotional activity in December, although at more sustainable levels," he said.
Baker added that "Black Friday" 2004 saw only marginally more aggressive pricing trends than in prior years, including the 5.9 percent drop in November 2003 from October 2003.
Nine of the 27 products fell 10 percent or more from their October levels, including notebook PCs with 15-inch screens, off about 21 percent to $850, and 17-inch liquid crystal display (LCD) monitors, off 11 percent to $368, NPD said.
Other screen-based products also slipped, including 20-inch LCD TVs, down 9 percent to $724, while 42-inch plasma televisions fell about 6 percent to $2,314.
U.S. prices for the flat-screen TVs have fallen more than 25 percent in the past year, NPD said. Strong interest in the sets, which lingers ahead of the National Football League's Super Bowl championship game on Feb. 6, has not translated into sales growth large enough to absorb increased output.
Average prices for digital cameras slipped to $157 in November, off more than 18 percent from October, while 128-megabyte digital memory cards -- the companion product used to store images taken by the cameras -- were down some 22 percent, according to NPD.
A handful of gadgets bucked the declines, posting higher prices in April, NPD said, including desktop PCs with no monitor, basic DVD players and 20-gigabyte digital music players, a category dominated by Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod.
NPD Consumer Electronics Price Watch is compiled by NPD Group, a Port Washington, New York-based market information company, using point-of-sale data from most major U.S. retail stores. The monthly data consist of the total dollar value of the 27 most popular home electronics and cover changes as consumers start buying different items.