Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Ultra, launched in January 2025, is turning out to be more expensive to build than its predecessors—even though its starting price of $1,299 hasn’t changed. A new report from Counterpoint Research sheds light on where these extra costs are coming from and how Samsung is managing to keep the retail price steady.
According to Counterpoint’s analysis, the bill of materials (BoM) for the 12GB + 512GB variant of the Galaxy S25 Ultra is 3.4% higher than the S24 Ultra. That marks a bigger jump than the relatively modest cost increase from the S23 Ultra to the S24 Ultra.
The most significant cost driver? You guessed it—the new Snapdragon 8 Elite chip. Built on TSMC’s 3nm process and featuring Qualcomm’s custom Oryon CPU, the chip alone accounts for a 21% increase in system-on-chip (SoC) costs. The absence of Samsung’s in-house Exynos 2500—originally expected to serve as a cheaper alternative—has likely pushed the overall cost higher.
Memory pricing also ticked up slightly, reversing the decline seen between the S23 Ultra and S24 Ultra. Market fluctuations appear to be behind the bump, adding pressure to the phone’s overall production budget.
Not all component categories saw increases, though. The cost of the titanium frame—introduced with the S24 Ultra—has started to come down as production processes mature. Likewise, display costs have eased slightly from their peak in the previous generation, thanks to better manufacturing efficiency.
On the connectivity front, Samsung has managed to trim more than 10% in hardware costs by consolidating radio components, replacing older multi-part solutions with a newer single-chip transceiver. Even the camera setup, despite an upgraded 50MP ultrawide lens, ended up costing less overall—helped by the shift from a 10x to a 5x periscope zoom lens.
In all, the 3.4% rise in BoM costs for the S25 Ultra reflects a mix of minor upgrades and cost-saving trade-offs. Samsung seems to be walking a fine line between innovation and affordability, keeping the device competitive without dramatically raising the price for consumers.
Whether this balance holds in future models remains to be seen—but for now, Samsung appears to be absorbing rising costs where it matters most.
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