Samsung Raised Galaxy S26 Prices Six Months In

The New US Price List

Samsung raised the US price of most of the Galaxy S26 lineup by $100 on 1 October 2026, six months after launch, and by $200 on the 1TB Galaxy S26 Ultra. The new prices are live on Samsung.com, according to 9to5Google, Digital Trends and The Verge.

The base Galaxy S26 now costs $200 more than the base Galaxy S25, because Samsung had already added $100 at launch, a rise The Verge says the company partly blamed on RAM prices. Android Police notes that the Ultra at $1,399 now costs more than the iPhone 18 Pro Max, which starts at $1,299.

Third-party stores had not caught up on the day. 9to5Google reports that Amazon and Best Buy had not yet updated their prices, and Android Police says the phones can still be had at the old price there.

Samsung Gave No Reason, The Memory Market Did

Samsung has not explained the increase, and How-To Geek says it has asked the company for comment. Every outlet that covered the change points to the same cause: the price of RAM and flash storage, pushed up by AI data-centre demand.

Digital Trends reports that Samsung said on its second-quarter earnings call that demand keeps running ahead of memory supply, and that it expects the shortage to worsen in 2027 and possibly last into 2028. The same costs that lift Samsung's chip profits hurt its phone division, the company has admitted.

Samsung is not moving alone. How-To Geek says Apple raised prices across its lineup weeks earlier, including the iPhone 18 Pro and the year-old iPhone 17, and that the Pixel 11 series costs more than last year's Pixel. It also cites TrendForce, which expects price relief only in 2028.

What Did Not Move, And What We Cannot Tell

The Galaxy S26 FE stays at $699 and the Galaxy Z Fold 8 and other foldables are unchanged, while How-To Geek says the A-series and Galaxy Tab line did not move either. 9to5Google notes that Samsung had already raised the FE by $50 over the previous generation when it launched in August.

The increase is not only American. Android Police reports that Samsung is also raising the flagship's price in South Korea and recently raised the S26 family's price in India, and MobileSyrup reports updated Canadian prices on the same day.

None of the reports we read gives a euro or sterling price, so whether European and UK prices will follow is not established. Check your own supplier's list instead of assuming the US move carries over.

What A Fleet Buyer Should Do This Week

Price the change per device before you price it per order. On a 100-phone order of the 256GB Ultra, the $100 rise adds $10,000 before tax, and the 1TB model adds $200 on every phone.

Ask your reseller whether quotes issued at the old price are honoured and for how long, because retail channels had not repriced on 1 October. A written price-validity date turns a quote into a protection.

Then ask whether a flagship is needed at all. The FE and the A-series now sit further below the flagship line, and a memory shortage that analysts expect to last into 2028 argues for budgeting a higher phone cost into every refresh cycle, not for treating this as a one-off.

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