Samsung's difficult Galaxy S26 decision probably won't please you

The Galaxy S26 series is only a few months away now, so naturally, there's a lot of excitement about the new lineup. It was reported yesterday that the company is expected to unveil the device in February at an event in San Francisco.

There have been grumblings of an expected price hike and it would be a difficult decision for Samsung to make, as higher prices can dent sales. However, it appears that the situation may not be entirely in Samsung's hands.

A new report out of South Korea claims that due to a significant rise in component prices across the board, a price hike for the Galaxy S26 series is inevitable. Samsung kept the base model prices for all three Galaxy S25 phones the same in most markets, but that may not be the case next year.

A recent report from Samsung Electronics had revealed that chipset prices have increased 12% from last year's average while camera module prices are up 8%. Mobile DRAM prices have jumped 16% from the just first quarter of this year.

A more significant rise is expected in the coming months due a memory shortage as production has decreased in favor of the more lucrative high-bandwidth memory for AI chips.

Samsung won't be alone in making this difficult decision. Apple has had to implement some price hikes with the latest iPhone 17 series and it's expected to raise them even further next year. Many Chinese OEMs have made similar decisions.

This may have been one of the reasons why Samsung pushed to have the Exynos 2600 ready for the Galaxy S26 series, as the chipset would ostensibly be cheaper than buying Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon chipset.

As for how much the price increase would be, it's likely to be in the range of $50-$100, as that's typically been the case whenever one has been implemented for a new lineup.