Samsung Galaxy S25's best feature could force a major price hike

We've heard previous chatter that the Galaxy S25 prices could be going up when Samsung releases its Galaxy S24 successor early next year. Now we've got a bead on just how much Galaxy S25 production costs could be rising.

Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo expects the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chipset likely to power next year's flagship to be a very expensive piece of silicon. In a post on Medium that was spotted by Phone Arena, Kuo thinks the new system-on-chip is going to be priced 25% to 30% higher than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset that powers all Galaxy S24 Ultra models and the Galaxy S24 and S24 Plus phones that ship in North America.

If true, Samsung would have to either absorb that added cost or pass some of it on to consumers. The result would be higher-priced phones than the Galaxy S24 models, which started at $799. The most expensive model, the Galaxy S24 Ultra, has a $1,299 starting price, and that's after a $100 increase in January.

This isn't the first we've heard of higher Galaxy S25 costs. Back in May, a leaker on Weibo was warning of the cost of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, though Kuo's new report provides further detail on why the chip figures to be so pricey.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 is slated to be built on an enhanced 3nm chip process. The good news is that should mean more performance power, certainly enough to handle the growing demands of AI features that smartphone makers are increasingly adding to their devices. But it's also a more costly process.

Samsung could opt to do what it did this year and use its own Exynos chips in some Galaxy S models. (For the S24 lineup, the versions of the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24 Plus that shipped outside of North America used the Exynos 2400, for example.) At least, the Exynos 2500 is also expected to be a 3nm chip, so it should see performance gains, too.

The question is whether those gains match what we've heard about so far in terms of leaked Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 benchmarks. Those scores show a Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chipset overpowering the A18 silicon expected to feature in Apple's iPhone 16 release.

The rumored price hike to Galaxy S25 models is the second such rumor to circulate among Samsung phones. Last week, rumors indicated that Samsung was planning to boost the starting price on the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6 by $100.

The two foldable phones are supposed to debut at a Galaxy Unpacked event later this summer. Meanwhile, the Galaxy S25 lineup should be making its debut early next year. Qualcomm has already confirmed that we'll be seeing the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 at this fall's Snapdragon Summit.

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