Hopes Dissipate at Conn’s for Strong TV Replacement Cycle Inspired by Ultra HD

For Conn’s, “the most disappointing sales trend” in recent weeks has come in the TV category, CEO Theo Wright said Tuesday on an earnings call. Though TV sales trends have been “consistently good” during heavy promotional periods like Black Friday and the buildups to the Super Bowl and March Madness, “outside of these periods television sales trends have not been as strong,” he said. Conn’s estimates 49 percent of its TV sales in February involved an Ultra HD set, Wright said. “When customers have a need or a desire for a new television, the value of the product is compelling, but we’ve not been able to generate sustained traffic for the category,” he said. “Thus far, we’re not seeing the hope for a replacement cycle.” It was a markedly gloomier outlook than Wright gave immediately after Black Friday weekend when he declared Ultra HD “the big winner for us so far in the holiday period," so much so that “we could see a meaningful replacement cycle" forming as a result (see 1412100047).