Galaxy Fold resellers are jacking up the phone’s price by more than 100%
When Samsung announced the Galaxy Fold, many balked at the price when it was revealed that the phone would cost $1,980. While we expected that it probably would be expensive due to the use of new technology, we didn’t think it would be priced at almost twice the price of a flagship smartphone.
It turns out that there might be some people who are willing to pay more. This is according to a report from Forbes who has revealed that over in Hong Kong, gray market imports of the Galaxy Fold are being sold in the country for around HK$38,000, which after conversion is roughly $4,856. This is more than double the asking price.
This is due to a couple of reasons, one of which is that the Galaxy Fold is currently only available in South Korea, and that apparently Samsung had only had an initial batch of 1,000 units available, thus making it quite a rare item. The jacked up prices aren’t exactly surprising either.
Back in the day when the iPhone was first launched, it too had limited availability, resulting in resellers in many countries around the world hiking up their prices. It also created a market in which people would be paid by resellers to queue up and buy the phone in bulk to send to other countries that it was not yet available in.
We expect that eventually prices will level out, but for now, $4,000 will be the price you can expect to pay if you want to be an early adopter.
Source: Forbes