{"id":355972,"date":"2026-02-25T18:49:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T18:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/355972\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T18:49:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T18:49:08","slug":"samsung-unveils-galaxy-s26-lifts-prices-in-key-markets-amid-chip-price-surge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/355972\/","title":{"rendered":"Samsung unveils Galaxy S26; lifts prices in key markets amid chip price surge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">SEOUL, Feb 26 (Reuters) &#8211; Samsung Electronics on Thursday launched its flagship Galaxy S26 <a href=\"https:\/\/tech.yahoo.com\/phones\/\" data-ylk=\"slk:smartphones;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">smartphones<\/a> with higher prices for some models in the \u200cUnited States and South Korea, testing demand as soaring memory chip costs \u200cpressure margins.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">The rollout, which integrates Perplexity&#8217;s AI features along with Google&#8217;s Gemini and an upgraded \u200bBixby, follows Samsung&#8217;s loss of smartphone leadership last year to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/organizations\/apple\/\" data-ylk=\"slk:Apple;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Apple<\/a>, which benefited from strong iPhone demand in China and India.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">The company last month warned of a worsening chip shortagedriven by the AI boom, with strong memory demand supporting its core \u200cchip business but pressuring smartphones \u2060and display units.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">A global push by firms such as Meta, Google and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/organizations\/microsoft\/\" data-ylk=\"slk:Microsoft;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Microsoft<\/a> to build AI infrastructure has absorbed much \u2060of memory supply, lifting prices as chipmakers prioritise higher-margin data centre components such as high-bandwidth memory chips over consumer devices.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Samsung priced the base Galaxy S26 at $899 in \u200bthe United \u200bStates, up 4.7% from the previous model, \u200band the S26 Plus at $1,099, \u200cup 10%. Prices for the Ultra were unchanged.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">In South Korea, it raised the base model price by 8.6%.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">The company also equipped some S26 models with in-house Exynos processors after using Qualcomm\u2019s Snapdragon chips for the S25, a shift analysts said could support its chip design business and mobile margins.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Samsung said the S26 \u200cUltra includes what it calls the industry&#8217;s first \u200bbuilt-in mobile privacy display, limiting side viewing \u200bangles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">The company said it will begin \u200brolling out the S26 series on March 11.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Market tracker TrendForce \u200cexpected conventional DRAM contract prices to \u200bsurge by 90% \u200bto 95% in the January to March period of this year, from the final three months of 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Apple&#8217;s Tim Cook said in a post-earnings \u200bconference call in January \u200che expected memory chip prices to increase sharply, but declined to \u200banswer analysts&#8217; questions about whether Apple would raise prices in response.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">(Reporting \u200bby Heekyong Yang; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEOUL, Feb 26 (Reuters) &#8211; Samsung Electronics on Thursday launched its flagship Galaxy S26 smartphones with higher prices&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[74],"tags":[311,2638,166545,18,19,17,110289,123043,30725,2428,82],"class_list":["post-355972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-apple","tag-chip-design","tag-contract-prices","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-memory-chip","tag-s26","tag-samsung-electronics","tag-south-korea","tag-technology"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116132771586896026","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}