Korean publications FN News There’s some good and some bad news for those looking to buy the Galaxy S26 when it arrives (likely in March) – prices are rising, but launch day deals may allow you to avoid the price increase.
According to industry sources, prices for the base 256GB model in South Korea will range between KRW 44,000 and KRW 88,000. For reference, the Galaxy S25 launched at KRW 1,155,000, the S25+ at KRW 1,353,000, and the S25 Ultra at KRW 1,698,400.
This is for Korea – Samsung will reportedly keep the launch prices the same as for select overseas markets like the US. This means the S26 trio will launch at $800, $1,000, and $1,300 respectively, the same as the S25 trio.
It seems that the lower prices will be a temporary measure during the initial launch period. And it’s not at all clear which markets will see lower prices at all.
Forecasted prices for mobile DRAM (Source: TrendForce)
The reason is pretty easy to figure out – the price of 12GB LPDDR5X RAM has more than doubled since last year. And it is expected to grow by an additional 40% by the second half of this year. Prices for NAND flash (storage) are also rising.
However, it is not just memory. The Korean won to US dollar exchange rate is unfavorable, reaching 1,400 KRW to 1 dollar. This is a major issue for components that have to be sourced from abroad.
Samsung reportedly spent a record KRW 11 trillion on smartphone chipsets in Q3 and Q4 last year – or $7.6 billion, with most of that going to US-based Qualcomm.
Now you can see why Samsung is trying so hard to replace Snapdragon with Exynos chips – Korean-made chips are cheaper and not as sensitive to exchange rate fluctuations. However, it has not been particularly successful and only a few models use Exynos. As for the Galaxy S26 series, the latest unconfirmed information is that it will use Snapdragon everywhere except one market – Korea.
Samsung is expected to unveil the Galaxy S26 series in San Francisco in late February ahead of a retail launch in early March. Here are some rumors about the new phone.
PS The S-series flagships are not the only models affected by this. Even existing models are being marked up, for example the Galaxy A56 price will increase by ₹2,000 in India.