We scoured Samsung retail websites across the world to find the cost of owning an S22 in over 40 different countries and using the median annual salary for each, calculated the number of hours people will need to work in order to earn enough money to buy a Samsung flagship around the world.
With Covid spurring a global chip shortage, phones have been a hot commodity over the past 18 months, pushing prices up and availability down.
However, the past 12 months has been a bumper year for smartphone market with the release of the critically adored iPhone 13 and the innovative, much anticipated – if still teething Google Pixel 6.
With the Pixel 6 struggling from a bumpy i hoping for a true flagship iPhone competitor have been eagerly anticipating this month’s Samsung Galaxy S22 launch, building on the highly successful S21 with its powerful processor and killer camera.
The wait is over, and luckily for Samsung fans, despite global costs rising across the board, prices for the new Samsung s22 deals have remained relatively flat compared to the S21, with minor increases for the highest sets.
This year, Samsung have initially released three variants of its new flagship Samsung Galaxy S22 phone, with nine different configurations, including the S22 Ultra available with up to a whopping 1TB of storage, ranging from £950 ($846) to £2,030 ($1,690).
Even with prices remaining relatively in line with 2021, flagship phones don’t come cheap. So, with the cost of an S22 varying by country, where is this year’s handset the most and least affordable?
We scoured Samsung retail websites across the world to find the cost of owning an S22 in over 40 different countries and using the median annual salary for each, calculated the number of hours people will need to work in order to earn enough money to buy a Samsung flagship around the world.
Note - With local taxes varying by State and Province, prices for the United States and Canada are an average of the cost of a Samsung S22 at the highest and lowest rate of tax. Unless otherwise stated the model used for our comparison is the Samsung Galaxy S22 126 GB, a full breakdown of all models and storage options are available in the table below.
How many hours people will have to work to afford a Galaxy S22 around the world?
Least Affordable - Egypt
Android fans living in Egypt will have to work an average of 1095 hours, or a solid 137 days (over three months) to earn enough to get their hands on the Samsung Galaxy S22 126GB, before taxes or living expenses.
The hours needed to buy the handset is even more staggering if they wanted to top end Galaxy S22 Ultra, where the 256GB version would take 217 working days, more than half a year, to buy, or a total of 1738 hours.
Most Affordable - Switzerland
With an average annual salary of $79,270, people living in Switzerland would need just 4 working days (32 hours) to grab the entry level S22.
However, if they really wanted to push the boat out, they could pick up the high spec S22 Ultra 512GB for and extra few days, costing the equivalent of 7 days or 55 hours of work.
While having one of the world’s largest median annual salaries, Switzerland also ranks in the top 10 for countries that pay the least for the S 22 handset.
Most Expensive - Jordan
At $1,082 for the bast model, Jordan has the world’s most expensive S22. People in Jordan will pay $236 more than those in the U.S - that’s a premium of 28%.
People earning an average salary in Jordan would need to work 340 hours to earn enough to buy the handset - that’s roughly 32 days.
If you want the absolute best from this year’s Samsung line up, then the most expensive option is S22 Ultra (1 TB) which costs the equivalent $2,032 in the UK, $607 more expensive than it would cost to buy in South Korea where it is cheapest.
Least Expensive - Poland
The cheapest possible Samsung S22 experience come from Poland, with the entry level 128GB model starting at ‘just’ $836 – bargain.
However, based on average wages Poland sits in the middle of our affordability ranking, with a total work hour cost of 250 hours or 28 days.
The number of hours you'll need to work to afford a Samsung Galaxy S22 around the world
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