People are buying the Galaxy S26 because they're scared of the Galaxy S27

The Galaxy S26 is doing very well in the market. Samsung says that it has sold 2x faster than the Galaxy S25 in the company's home country.

It's also seeing sustained demand for the device in other markets across the globe, so much so that the company has increased production target for the month of July 2026 by 50% to 1.5 million units.

On the surface, this seems that the increased demand is driven solely by the device's value proposition. That may be the case, but it's likely not the entire story.

It could be just as likely that customers are buying the Galaxy S26 phones now because they anticipate considerable price increases for the Galaxy S27 series.

Smart buyers tend to hold off on purchasing new flagships just when they're released because Samsung has no incentive to discount the device or offer any significant promotions beyond its elevated trade-in values. Even those trade-in values only have benefit for customers that purchase from Samsung.com.

Those buyers tend to wait until the lineup reaches mid-cycle. It's far enough removed from the original launch but equally not as distant from the new lineup that's typically due in the beginning of the coming year.

This is also when Samsung typically offers generous discounts and other promotions because it needs to keep the numbers up, which inevitably decline by the second quarter once the initial sales rush subsides.

All of the data and predictions point to price hikes for flagship phones next year. It's inevitable. Memory chips now make up more than 40% of a device's production cost and the situation probably won't improve in the near future.

With Samsung's mobile division already bleeding margins across its entire lineup, it would be very difficult for the company to not raise prices next year.

Smart buyers who are driving up demand for the Galaxy S26 series now are at least partly doing so because they've run the numbers, seen the Galaxy S27 rumors, noted that memory prices are still rising, and concluded that the S26 at today's price is a safer bet than the Galaxy S27 at tomorrow's.

Samsung has, perhaps without intending to, stumbled into a sales strategy that the tech industry has historically associated with commodity markets rather than consumer electronics, which is buy now before prices go up.

Ironically, this mentality is what's driving up memory chip prices, because hyperscalers fear that if they don't lock in memory chips now, they'd neither find the supply nor the comparatively bearable prices currently on offer.

The production boost Samsung has ordered for July will produce phones that are mostly going to people who made a defensive financial decision rather than waiting to see what the next flagship brings.

Which, in any case, won't be vastly different from what the Galaxy S26 series offers. That is not a bad outcome for Samsung's quarterly shipment numbers.

We've already discussed how the era of predicatable Galaxy pricing is over, and that customers shouldn't expect it to return. There's no guarantee that if, for example, the Galaxy S27 Ultra launches at $1,499 that future models will come back to $1,299 a few years down the road.

That's not how capitalist enterprises work. Even if the memory supercycle cools by 2028 or 2029, companies like Samsung that are taking a hit on their smartphone margins right now will have no incentive to cut. Rather, they will have every incentive to maintain higher prices so that they can improve profitability.

So it may seem like the Galaxy S26 series continues to be in high demand because it's just that good. That even by the second half of the year it's sticking with the initial momentum that many of its predecessors had lost a few months after launch.

But it's hard to view that in isolation when the entire market is facing some of its toughest challenges yet. The smart buyer has noticed this and is making arrangements.

Anyone who keeps an eye on how markets move can see the signal clearly. The Galaxy S27 is coming, and it will almost certainly cost more. The smart money is on buying now, which will likely save you more money in the long run.