Wendy Zhang/ Shanghai Daily news

LCD TV buyers will be happy to see hefty price reductions on some luxury models this weekend, thanks to the expanded production of LCD panels, according to the China Business News (CBN) yesterday.
Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) TV manufacturers Sony, Sharp, TCL, Hisense, Haier, Skyworth, Konka and Xoceco, will significantly slash prices this weekend, with many LCD models with prices even lower than those of the corresponding Plasma TVs, according to the leading domestic home appliance retailers Gome Electrical Appliance Holding Ltd and Nanjing Suning Electric Appliances Group.
The price decrease is a result of the soaring output of LCD panels in Taiwan, Japan and South Korea. Earlier this month, Taiwan's largest TFT-LCD manufacturer AU Optronics Corp officially produced the new 7.5-generation thin-film-transistor (TFT) LCD panels. Before that, the second 7-generation production line, jointly established by Sony and Samsung, had been put into mass operation in South Korea. Recently, LG-Philip joint venture and Sharp Corp. have expanded their productions on TFT-LCD panels.
"The mass production of LCD panels has lowered the costs of our models that are larger than 40-inches," said Han Qing, vice general manager of the Chinese business center of TCL Tomson Electronics, adding that the price of a 47-inch LCD TV will be lowered to 13,000 yuan (US$1,625) this weekend, much lower than the 50-inch Plasma TV costing about 18,000 yuan.
Many domestic 42-inch LCD TVs will cost less than 9,000 yuan this weekend, while 42-inch Plasma TVs will sell for around 10,000 yuan, said Fan Zhijun, executive president of Suning's northern China area.
Many 40-inch LCD TVs will be priced under 7,900 yuan, with 37-inch models selling for less than 6,900 yuan this weekend, said Li Juntao, general manager of the procurement center of Gome.