Galaxy S8 drives up average Samsung phone sales price

Even with a spread of price points starting from $400, it’s amazing that Apple can pull off average iPhone prices near $700. It’s something that separates the profit makers from the margin takers. Samsung has always been stuck in a limbo — it has several, granulated series of smartphones from the entry range to the $850 Galaxy S8+. That’s a lot of room for the lower end to weigh the average down.

As such, Strategy Analytics has not been able to recently been able report an average price higher than $250 for a Samsung LTE phone. But in the second quarter, that figure made a recovery to a three-year high of $235. The chaebol a nice buoy in the form of the Galaxy S8 and S8+. The analytics firm logged 19.2 million units sold during the spring. The flagships accounted for a mere 20.6 percent of total smartphone sales made in the season.

But in context, the number’s a bit more depressing than you think. The record low quarters in the past three years were in the back half of 2016, during the Galaxy Note 7 recall debacle. The average price then was just $227. The last recorded peak happened four years ago at $289 before a rapid fall through 2014.

A product mix of Samsung’s scale supports many, many customers. It’s the audience that the company continues to keep. The upgrade narrative, though, remains perilous in developing countries.