Samsung Galaxy S prices vs average salaries in South Africa — 2010 to 2024

Since first launching in South Africa in 2010, the price of Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S series smartphones have surged from making up around half to nearly 90% of the average salary in the formal job sector.

That is according to an analysis of the launch prices of 14 generations of Galaxy S series smartphones compared to the average monthly earnings of employees in the non-agricultural formal sector, as tracked by Statistics South Africa in its Quarterly Employment Survey (QES).

When the Galaxy S series was launched in South Africa in August 2010, it was difficult to come by official prepaid pricing, with most networks focusing on contract offers.

However, we found that one of the original model’s buyers paid R6,000 at Vodacom World to buy the phone outside of a contract.

That worked out to around 50.7% of the average earnings of R11,825 in the QES for August 2010.

Over the next few years, the recommended retail pricing and actual prices retailers and networks charged for the S series varied greatly.

In general, however, the price of the Galaxy S smartphones increased not only in real terms but in proportion to the average salary, peaking at 91.1% for the Galaxy S10 in 2019.

The recommended retail starting price of the latest Galaxy S series —the Galaxy S24 — is R22,499 — making up about 86.2% of the average earnings in August 2023, which was the latest month for which QES data was available at the time of publication.

There are several factors to blame for the Galaxy S becoming substantially more expensive relative to the average salary in South Africa.

Firstly, the retail prices for the flagship smartphones increased in all markets.

For example, the original Galaxy S launched with a starting price of around $669 in the US, while the base Galaxy S24 currently retails from $800.

However, customers in the US are only paying about 19.4% more for the flagship smartphone.

At $1,300, the top-end Ultra model costs 94.3% more than the most affordable Galaxy S1 did when it launched in the US.

In South Africa, the entry-level Galaxy S24 is about 275% more expensive than the original Galaxy S at launch, while the S24 Ultra’s launch price is about 442% higher.

The biggest contributor to the substantial increase in prices is likely to be the weakening Rand.

Where our local currency was trading at an average of around R7.31 to the US dollar in 2010, it slumped in the years that followed to reach the R18-R19 level in early 2024.

Additionally, in the 14 years since the Galaxy S1’s release, the average earnings in the QES increased by about 121%, substantially less than the jump in S series prices.

The table below compares the launch prices of Galaxy S smartphones with the average earnings of workers in the formal sector from 2010 to 2024.