Last week we received a press invite for the launch of the new Samsung GALAXY S5 flagship phone that debuted at the recent Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. Themed “The Power of Five”, the event will happen on 27 March 2014. No official pricing has been revealed, but our friends at MalaysianWireless have leaked the pricing and availability of the much-awaited smartphone.
According to MalaysianWireless, the GALAXY S5 will be priced at RM2,399 and will officially hit the shelves on 11 April 2014 via major telcos. Local telcos have already started teasing the device on the websites.
While the leaked pricing could be accurate, we have a hunch that this may not be the final pricing. Here’s why.
This hunch of ours is solely based on historical pricing of the Samsung GALAXY S devices, as well as compared to the bigger GALAXY Note series.
Let’s have a look.
Going back to 2011, the Samsung S II was introduced at a whopping price of RM2,599. Months later, price of the flagship dropped down to a more down-to-earth RM2,099.
If you look at the pricing of the S flagship over the past couple of years, it has always been in the vicinity of RM2,199–2,299. The highly successful GALAXY S3 debuted at RM2,199, as did its successor, the GALAXY S4.
The GALAXY S4 LTE 32GB version rolled out later at a price of RM2,499.
Bearing in mind that current crop of flagships from competitors all come with 4G LTE, we expect the GALAXY S5 to be no different, and therefore expect the GALAXY S5 to be in the range of RM2,199–2,299.
The other factor in the equation is the price of the GALAXY S range as compared to its bigger GALAXY Note sibling. Traditionally, the GALAXY Note is always slightly pricier than the GALAXY S.
Case in point: The original Note sold for RM2,299 whilst the S II shipped at RM2,099 (after price reduction). The Note 2 then sold at RM2,299 as the GALAXY S3 was at RM2,199. The new Note 3 (32GB, 4G LTE) is priced at RM2,399 as compared to the GALAXY S4 which retails at RM2,199.
We could be very wrong of course. But then, even Stuff thinks it’s “quite a hefty price.”
What do you think? Comment below.
