Good news about Samsung smartphone prices in South Africa

Samsung recently launched its latest premium smartphone lineup — the Galaxy S25 series — with a marked price reduction over the previous generation Galaxy S24.

The South Korean tech giant launched the Galaxy S24 locally in February 2024, with a recommended retail price of R22,499 for the base S24 smartphone. The Galaxy S25 has launched in South Africa with a price tag of R19,999.

Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S25 series at a local launch event at the Wits Anglo-American Dome on Wednesday, 22 January 2025.

The new devices are centred around artificial intelligence (AI), and the company described the Galaxy S25 series as “true AI companions”.

The Galaxy S25 smartphones are the first to feature Google’s Gemini AI on-device. Google believes “agentic systems,” or those that help complete tasks, are the next big thing in AI technology.

The Galaxy S25 smartphones feature cross-app agentic capabilities that enable users to receive real-time feedback from Gemini on various tasks, including trying on clothes or making a new recipe for the first time.

“Just press and hold the side button to activate Gemini and perform seamless interaction across Samsung and Google apps, plus third-party apps such as Spotify,” Samsung said.

Gemini AI on Galaxy will also take down call transcripts and summaries, assist with writing and drawing, and perform enhanced Circle to Search.

Users can also activate screen sharing and live video streaming through Gemini, which will understand natural speech or prompts, allowing users to speak to their devices like humans.

Regarding hardware, the base Galaxy S25 has a 6.2-inch AMOLED display with a 1080p resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate.

It packs a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, 12GB of RAM, and a choice of 128GB, 256GB, or 512GB of storage. However, Samsung’s pre-order page currently only lists a 256GB storage configuration.

The Samsung Galaxy S25’s rear camera setup comprises a 50MP primary shooter, 12MP ultrawide sensor, and 10MP telephoto shooter. It features a 12MP selfie camera on the front.

The smartphone also packs a 4,000mAh battery capable of 25W wired fast charging and 15W wireless fast charging.

Galaxy S prices versus the average South African salary

MyBroadband compared StatsSA’s average South African salary data to Samsung’s Galaxy S smartphone launch prices from 2010 to 2024. We used the average salary amount for the respective month of launch.

Samsung launched the first Galaxy S smartphone in South Africa with a recommended retail price of R6,000, which was just over 50% of the average monthly salary in the country at the time.

The price of Galaxy S devices as a proportion of the average monthly salary remained below 60% for the company’s first three editions of the series, breaching the 60% mark in 2013 with the launch of the Galaxy S4.

The S4 launched with a recommended retail price of R8,999, or roughly 60.87% of the average monthly salary. The next device, the Galaxy S5 at R10,199, cost approximately 67% of the average wage when it launched.

The Samsung Galaxy S10’s price was the highest as a proportion of the average South African salary, at 91.1%.

The smartphone had a recommended retail price of R18,999, while the average monthly salary in the country was R20,855.

This came down significantly with the Galaxy S20 and again with the Galaxy S21 before rising with the Galaxy S22 and Galaxy S23.

The Samsung Galaxy S24 was launched locally in February 2024 with a recommended price of R22,499, roughly 86% of the average monthly salary at the time.

The latest device, the Samsung Galaxy S25, has a significantly lower launch price of R19,999. The average salary figure will likely be higher than last year’s, meaning buying the new Galaxy S device will likely take up far less of your monthly salary than last year.

Stats SA has yet to publish average salary data for January 2025.

The table below compares the South African launch prices of base Samsung Galaxy S smartphones from 2010 to 2024 as a proportion of the average salary in those years.