[News] Samsung Galaxy S26 Launch Feb. 25 Reportedly with Exynos 2600, Snapdragon; Memory Costs Hit Pricing

Samsung’s annual flagship lineup, the Galaxy S26 series, is set to launch. Economic Daily News notes that Samsung has scheduled a global product launch event in San Francisco on February 25 (U.S. Pacific Time), where it is expected to unveil its AI-focused flagship lineup.

As noted by Chosun Ilbo, industry observers predict the Galaxy S26 series will introduce a range of new AI features, including enhanced privacy protection, security, and app-level device control. EdgeFusion—an on-device image generation AI that operates without a network connection—is expected to be included. Samsung Electronics also plans to introduce Perplexity’s AI model to the Galaxy S26, following Google’s Gemini.

On the hardware side, the Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus are expected to use Exynos or Snapdragon processors depending on the market. Meanwhile, the Galaxy S26 Ultra is reportedly set to adopt the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 globally, according to Sammy Fans. As noted by Economic Daily News, the Exynos 2600 is manufactured in-house by Samsung on its 2nm process, while the Qualcomm version is built on TSMC’s 3nm node.

Rising Memory Costs May Drive Galaxy S26 Price Increases

On the cost front, according to Economic Daily News, soaring memory prices have significantly increased costs, leading industry watchers to expect potential price hikes for the Galaxy S26 series. Although Samsung is a global memory chip leader, the current memory shortage has reportedly made it difficult even for Samsung’s own smartphone division to secure sufficient supply, the report notes.

While the S26 series has yet to be officially released, Economic Daily News cites PhoneArena as saying leaks suggest higher pricing in France for certain models. The 256GB version of the S26 is rumored to be priced at €999, up more than 4% compared with the €959 price tag of the 256GB S25. As for the core S26+ model, the 256GB version is reportedly priced at €1,269, which is €100 higher than the €1,169 price of the same-capacity S25+.

Read more

• [News] Galaxy S26 Prices in Korea Could Rise by Roughly $30–60 as Samsung Faces Soaring Component Costs
• [News] Samsung MX Faces Galaxy S26 Cost Pressure as Memory Division Reportedly Sticks to Quarterly Pricing

(Photo credit: Samsung)