Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy S23, Galaxy S23+, and Galaxy S23 Ultra may keep the same prices as their predecessors in the US, but not elsewhere. A past rumor from Australia made us aware of the upcoming price hikes for the first time, and today newly leaked prices for the trio in Europe basically confirm the bad news.
The Galaxy S23 base model will be €100 more expensive than the Galaxy S22 base model was (here are all the launch prices from last year to compare to). The Galaxy S23+ base model, with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, will be €100 more expensive than the Galaxy S22+ version with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, and €150 more expensive than the base model Galaxy S22+ was with 128GB of storage.
The base model Galaxy S23 Ultra will be €150 more expensive than the base model Galaxy S22 Ultra, but you do get 256GB of storage instead of 128GB. The S22 Ultra didn’t have an identical version with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage we can directly compare to.
This means that in the cheapest Eurozone countries (due to differing VAT levels), such as Germany and Benelux, you should expect to pay €949 for a base model Galaxy S23, and €1,399 for a base model Galaxy S23 Ultra with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. The Galaxy S23+ will most likely be €1,199 with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, although this leak doesn’t specifically mention it for such markets.
Germany and Benelux it seems to be 949 for S23 base and 1399 for S23U base. No clue about S23+ for these countries. As usual, pricing depends on local taxes, duties etc. There will be some nice deals (like upgrade to next higher mem spec during pre-orders when buying base model)
— Roland Quandt (@rquandt) January 24, 2023
On the other hand, the tweet embedded above has a full price breakdown for Spain, for all versions of all models (aside from the 1TB iteration, as the information here is supposedly from a Spanish retailer and that version might be exclusive to Samsung.com in Spain). The slight difference compared to Germany and Benelux is something that’s always present and most likely has to do with higher VAT in Spain. Here are the above prices in an easier to read format:
| Spain | |||
| Galaxy S23 | Galaxy S23+ | Galaxy S23 Ultra | |
| 8/128 GB | €959 | N/A | N/A |
| 8/256 GB | €1,019 | €1,209 | €1,409 |
| 8/512 GB | N/A | €1,329 | N/A |
| 12/512 GB | N/A | N/A | €1,589 |
If this pans out, Samsung will, as most companies, respond to inflation by creating some more inflation – since that’s literally what increasing prices does. The irony isn’t lost on us, and it shouldn’t be lost on you, but if you’re interested in the Galaxy S23 phones, you should probably save up a little bit more than perhaps you initially may have expected. That being said, Samsung generally has pretty decent pre-order deals, and those may take some of the stink off of these price hikes.
