A friend of mine says he's waiting until FEB2024 to buy his Pocket 3 because he claims prices "always" come down after CES (JAN2024). Is this a safe bet? What say you?

CES 2024: https://www.ces.tech/

Doubtful. DJI prices generally do not drop very quickly, if at all, from my experience.

If it doesn't sell well, the price will go down, but I don't think that's likely since the Pocket 3 is constantly out of stock.

As long as sales continue to be good I don't see it being discounted that soon.  

Maybe in some stores, but it's (IMHO) too quick after the release. Pricedrops mostly happen close before the introduction of a replacing product.

Why would they discount it when you can't even get one right now because they are selling like hotcakes?   When you see you can get one on Amazon within a couple of days then you know that supply has caught up to demand.  After that it'll take another few months before you might see a small discount.