Television digest with electronics reports (Jan-Dec 1953)

with Electronics Reports wyatt building {/ Washington a. o c • telephone sterling 3-1755 Trade Beporl December 19, 1953 ] THERE'S PLENTY OF LIFE IN TV TRADE— FOR 1954: "Pay no heed to the prophets of gloom. This industry's not going to hell in a hand basket." This rather colorful comment on the current and upcoming TV market by a manufacturing research expert for whose judgment we have the highest regard on basis of past observations. He's a man who has charted ups and downs of the TV industry from inception. He buttressed his conclusion with the following reasoning: "Our inventories today are not in bad shape at all. They totaled between 2,000,000 and 2,100,000 in all pipelines on Dec. 4, and I'm willing to bet we leave the year with less than 2,000,000. I believe that's very good. "Remember, we went into this year with about 1,200,000 sets in all pipelines and that was far too few. We had people standing in line to buy a TV set and that shouldn't happen in our industry or any other industry. Remember, too, that we have about 100,000 dealers handling TV now, as compared to about 85,000 a year ago." He cited need to keep inventory in balance as reason for recent wave of TV production cutbacks — "the manufacturers are just now catching up with their sins for making too many sets." He said nobody is overloaded now — especially not the dealers, citing fact that 185,000 sets were sold by distributors to dealers in week ended Dec. 4 — "and, brother, dealers aren't buying more than they're selling. So wouldn't you say that business was pretty good now?" Turning to next year: "I fail to see why we shouldn't sell 6,000,000 to 6,500,000 sets at retail. In other words, just about what we're doing this year." He declined to make any forecast on production, saying "10 top set makers really make the decision on how many receivers will be produced in this industry — but 150,000,000 consumers decide how many will be sold." * * * * Even while FCC was approving compatible color system this week, that school of trade which believes antidote to color's impact on black-&-white sales is larger sets at lower prices seemed to be asserting itself. There was scuttlebutt, unverifiable but probably with some substance, that several of the big manufacturers may shortly introduce 21-in. table models as low as $200. Move would follow logically in wake of recent tube price declines, growing popularity of 21-in. and reluctance of consumers to sink a lot of money into expensive black-&-white models w ith color in offing — to say nothing of sluggish performance, saleswise, of 24 & 27-in. Attesting to popularity of 21-in., Motorola this week said it was short on that size models. Several other majors say the same thing, and there's no secret about fact that all have been producing progressively fewer 24 & 27-in. over last few months. * * * * TV production passed 7,000,000 mark week ended Dec. 11, totaling 131,893, up from 126,443 preceding week and 103,692 Thanksgiving week. It brought unofficial tally for year's production to date to about 7,050,000. With 3 weeks to go — 2 of them short holiday weeks — 1950' s record 7,463,800 seems certain to stand. Radio production in week totaled 278,815, up from 241,549 week ended Dec. 4 and 219,156 week before. It brought year's radio production to date to about 12,525,000. Retail TV sales in the first 10 months topped radio sales — excluding auto radios — for first time over such a period, according to RETMA report released this week. It tallied 4.922,128 TVs at retail, compared to 4,911,415 radios. They compared with 4,291,893 TVs, 4,877,059 radios, sold in corresponding 1952 period. For -Oct. alone, TV sales were 621,768, down from 753,953 in Sept. Radio sales in Oct. totaled 385,299, way down from 650,898 in Sept. 9