Date: 23 Jul 2009 Comments: 0

Over the last couple of years mobile handset costs have come down, whilst the cost of monthly contracts sold by the mobile network providers has remained mostly unaltered (although you now get more inclusive inclusive minutes and text messages|(though you do get more free minutes that said, you do get more free text messages and minutes than you once didSo, the price of a handset is proportionately lower than it was when compared alongside the full price of the mobile phone contract. In the past mobile phone retailers would give away free mobile handsets as an incentive for customers to take out a contract. In fact, many would even charge a fee for the cell phone in addition to the contract price. Cell phones were, at that time extremely expensive, and often beingseen as a luxury product or status symbol. Today with more widespread use and resulting economies of scale even the best cell phones can be obtained cheaply.

This causes something of a dilemma for retailers who are trying to market mobile phone packages in terms of incentives offered to the customer. The effect of this has been the launch of a number of different deals with incentives, for example cell phones with free broadband dongles, cell phones with free televisions, cell phones with automatic cash back, and even mobile phones with free laptops.

Televisons are one of the more recent products to be added to the range of free items obtainable with cellular phones. Just a two or three years ago, the thought of getting a free 26inch lcd television completely free with a mobile phone would have seemed crazy. However, we have seen important changes in the retail sector for television sets which make these deals feasible.

The technology used in the manufacture of|to produce|to manufacturechanged hugely over the last one or two years with the widespread introduction of LCD and HD television sets, and the trend toward digital transmission. This has mean that large numbers of consumers have upgraded their old televisions. High sales volumes have lead to rapid price reductions of LCD televisions, which had been prohibitively expensive when first launched.

This increase in demand for new televisions, coupled with their relatively low cost has made them a very attractive incentive for potential mobile phone customers. There are a lot of people “thinking” about changing their television for a superior model. If one of these people is in the market for a new mobile phone and sees one of these incentivised mobile phone free television deals it can be a very powerful incentive to buy.

As with any incentivised mobile phone deal, you need to understand the true value of what you are getting, so, compare the value of other incentivised deals to make sure the value of the television you are being offered is comparable to the value of other free gifts on offer. In particular look at the instant cashback deals on offer, and see how much you can pick up a television for from a cheap online retailer. It may be the case that you could actually get a better deal by taking cashback from the retailer and buying the television yourself.