Consumer electronics retailers in Australia are set to lose millions because big vendors like Sony, LG, Panasonic and Sharp underestimated the demand for HD TVs, claims a leading retailer..

Greg Smith the Managing Director of Clive Peeters claims that there is still big demand for flat panel TVs. He says the shortages have been caused by TV vendors “miscalculating demand in the market” is set to hurt most CE retailers.

“Our biggest problem right now is not a lack of customers, it’s a lack of flat-panel TV stock. The demand is there but unfortunately the TV vendors failed to forward order enough stock. The vendors have handled this situation very badly. I also believe that several of them underestimated the impact of vendors like Philips, Hitachi etc pulling out of the Australian market.”

Among the vendors singled out were Sony, LG and Panasonic however Smith did claim that both Sharp and Toshiba were also suffering from stock shortages.

“The next wave of TV stock will most probably include price rices however during the past few days some vendors have had a change of attitude to price rises and while we are seeing some new stock dribble into the channel we are not seeing price rises”.

“The vendors have got it wrong when it comes to flat panel TV sales this summer and with big viewing audiences for the Tennis retailers will be impacted by the lack of stock,” said Smith.

However, he is forecasting record demand for air conditioners as the mercury is forecast to be in the low 40s for Melbourne over the next 5 days. “There is good margin in air conditioning and we have access to stock so we are confident that we the record sales we are experiencing”.

Recently both JB Hi Fi and Harvey Norman told ChannelNews that they were suffering from a shortage of flat panel TV stock. 

More to follow on this story.