The cheapest countries to buy a Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

The prices of the new Samsung Galaxy S24 series are mostly unchanged in the US, with a notable exception being the Galaxy S24 Ultra. The base model of the most powerful phone in the lineup is $100 more expensive than the Galaxy S23 Ultra this time around at $1,299.99. That’s quite an outlay, even if it is set to be the hottest new Android phone on the market. But how does the price in the US compare to what residents of other countries around the world are paying? We were curious, so we looked for the cheapest place to buy the Galaxy S24 Ultra.

We’ve got a particular angle in mind here. We specifically want to know how much a US resident would pay if they bought the phone while visiting another country. This is an important distinction because it takes sales tax into account. Buying a phone in America will usually require a citizen to pay sales tax on top of the retail price, and this is no small amount on a device of this value. But if you’re a tourist in another nation, you can often avoid or claim back the sales tax, opening up the prospect of making significant savings overseas. We’ll find out if it’s worth buying the phone abroad.

We’re only looking at the price of the base 256GB model of the Galaxy S24 Ultra in this rundown. You can assume that the price structure of each country for the higher storage variants will be relative. In other words, the most expensive country for the 256GB model isn’t going to have the cheapest 1TB variation.

What are the cheapest countries to buy a Galaxy S24 Ultra?

We looked at the retail price of the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra in 15 of the biggest markets in which it is available for pre-order. We then converted the price in the local currency into the equivalent price in US dollars and organized them from cheapest to most expensive. You can see the results in the table below.

The asterisk against the US price indicates that this is the approximate price a US resident would pay for the phone in the States. Sales tax varies depending on where you are, so we’ve used an approximate 10% extra for the purpose of the comparison. Conversely, the retail prices of the phone in other countries, as shown in the table, are the most an American tourist will pay. In some of those countries, the price will include sales tax, and you may be able to claim a significant amount of between 10% and 20% back before you leave.

Of the countries we surveyed, Canada is currently the cheapest place to buy the Galaxy S24 Ultra, and by some distance. At the equivalent of $1,334, It’s around $75 cheaper than any other nation in the list. Even with sales tax taken into account, the USA is still one of the most affordable regions to get the flagship device, sitting third behind Canada and Indonesia.

We should point out here that the Galaxy S24 Ultra was only unveiled this week and hasn’t yet become available to pre-order in all markets. There are still countries in which we’re yet to get the official retail price of the phone from Samsung, and while there is speculation on how much it will cost in various nations, we’re sticking to hard facts. As such, several countries aren’t on this list yet, including Japan and South Korea — the home of the electronics giant. Some of these Southeast Asian countries are often near the top of these lists, so we’ll revisit the analysis in the coming weeks when we can add more regions and come to a more definitive conclusion.

Latin America appears to be where the phone is most expensive, at over $1,800 in both Mexico and Brazil. There are some possible reasons for this that we will touch on below.

Can I get the Galaxy S24 Ultra cheaper than this in the other countries?

No, not legitimately. The phone isn’t even available to buy yet. It’s only available to pre-order, so if you see it on sale for cheaper from a third-party vendor, it is almost certainly a scam of some sort. Given how similar it looks to the S23 Ultra, you could imagine some unscrupulous sellers trying to pass it off as the latest device. Stick to the officially licensed outlets.

That isn’t to say that there won’t be deals on the handsets from the official vendors. As our Galaxy S24 pre-orders page outlines, there are a variety of promotions available on the S24 Ultra in the US, and the same will be true during the pre-order stage in other countries. These include free storage upgrades, retailer credit, and trade-in offers. You can even get the Galaxy S24 Ultra for free from some carriers.

Should I buy the Galaxy S24 Ultra from another country?

If you happen to be traveling north of the border sometime soon, you might consider getting the phone slightly cheaper in Canada. But overall, we’ve outlined that US residents are already getting one of the best prices in the world for the phone, so there’s little benefit in buying it abroad right now. It also means you don’t have to worry about things like foreign software configurations or warranties.

Even if the Galaxy S24 Ultra were much cheaper in another country, it wouldn’t be worth heading to that country solely for the purpose of saving money on the phone. Your travel costs would far outweigh the discount you’d receive. In any event, there’s no need to pay full price for the device at this stage without any other benefits since all of the places you can pre-order it at home are offering extra incentives to buy.

When you think about it, it would be stranger if the Galaxy S24 Ultra were the same price in every country. Bringing a phone to market involves all kinds of costs, such as logistics, taxes, wage considerations, and so forth. These vary significantly across the world. Samsung will have priced the handset to cover these costs and make a good profit, so the final figure the manufacturer ends up with is bound to be different in each country.

We’re also conducting this comparison in US dollars, which means we need to take exchange rates into account. These retail prices of the Galaxy S24 Ultra were probably fixed months ago, and the world economy is a turbulent beast right now. While possibly temporary, the USD is weaker right now than it has been at most times in recent years, which might explain why the price of the handset in dollar terms is higher in other countries than we might expect.