If one of your family members has a new TV on their Christmas wish list, beware that you might not just have trouble fitting it under the tree, but even struggle to get it inside the living room.
That’s because some of the best selling TVs these days are so called “XXL TVs”, which is the term used to describe super-sized televisions that measure 97-inches or more. They’re selling like hot cakes in the U.S. due to rapidly declining prices, at a time when growing numbers of people are looking to replace the TVs they bought during the COVID-19 pandemic.
That’s according to a report by CNN, which says XXL TVs are one of the hottest segments in the TV industry this year, with sales spiking at a time when other categories are looking stagnant.
CNN said Best Buy, one of the biggest TV retailers in the U.S., is selling XXL TVs at 70% of its 940 stores across the country, citing growing demand from U.S. consumers.
The report notes that this demand is being driven by the reduced costs of such monstrously-sized televisions, which were once considered to be a luxury item that few could afford. But prices for 98-inch TVs have dropped 53% on average in the last 12 months, said an analyst from Circana. The lower prices have helped sales of XXL TVs to increase by a stunning 877% in that time, the analyst added.
What’s intriguing is that the prices of jumbo TVs are falling far faster than those of more moderately-sized models. According to Circana, the average of TVs measuring 75-inches to 96-inches has fallen just 6% over the same time frame, with sales up just 19%.
It’s important to point out that XXL TVs still require a significant investment. Most options on the market today range in price from $1,699 to $2,999, though with Best Buy, consumers can get free delivery and installation.
Best Buy isn’t the only retailer to notice this trend, with the likes of Walmart, Costco and Target also reporting similar growth in XXL TV sales and equally tempting price cuts.
Best Buy Chief Executive Corie Barry said in the company’s most recent financial earnings call that the growing sales of XXL TVs show how, even with the sputtering U.S. economy, consumers are willing to splurge on premium products when there’s a need to, and if the technology is compelling enough.
A spokesperson for Best Buy told CNN said XXL TV sales are spiking “as the technology gets better and more options are available at a variety of prices.”
Growth in the XXL TV segment appears to be mirroring what happened a few years ago, during the early stages of the pandemic, when large numbers of consumers, isolating at home, began snapping up 65-inch and bigger models to keep themselves entertained. For many consumers back then, the thinking was that if they’re forced to stay home, where they’re spending less, they may as well invest in a bigger and better screen to keep themselves entertained.
Back then, XXL TVs were still incredibly expensive, and most consumers were still pretty impressed with a 65-inch screen anyway, which was far bigger than what many had owned before.
TV makers like TCL, Hisense, Samsung, Konka, Xiaomi and others have put a lot of emphasis on super-sized TVs in recent years, pushing the idea that bigger is better, and some are even going beyond 100-inches. It’s thought that they’re doing so to try and arrest an alarming slump in TV sales that began as the pandemic subsided, and people began spending more time outdoors again.
With those four-year old TVs purchased during the pandemic now looking a bit aged, the focus on XXL TVs is finally beginning to pay off.
Circana analyst Paul Gagnon wrote about this in a recent report, saying that sales of 65-inch TVs first started to take off in 2018, before accelerating during the pandemic. He said many of those who bought TVs at that time are now considering an upgrade, and there’s a strong temptation to go even bigger.
“We expect this trend to persist as upgrade activity continues into 2025 and beyond,” Gagnon said.
Besides just having a bigger picture, one concrete advantage of having an XXL-sized TV is that it makes the “multi-view” feature found on some premium TVs much more viable.
If anyone has ever tried to use the feature to watch four different live sports events at the same time on a relatively small 55- or 65-inch television, they’ll know that the experience can be somewhat underwhelming, as the display is just too small to make out the details.
But a 98-inch TV can divvy up the screen into four, 48-inch boxes, which was once the standard size for most TVs in the 1980s, making it possible to watch multiple streams at once without straining your eyes.
