Buying Samsung Galaxy S4, six-month wait could save you 25%

Tomorrow sees the highly anticipated launch event of the Samsung Galaxy S4, when the speculation on product specs, price and release date finally comes to an end.

In light of tomorrow’s release of the Samsung Galaxy S4, price comparison website Idealo analysed thousands of user clicks to gauge the pricing of the two predecessor models and the speed at which Samsung’s flagship smartphone declined in price.
The key findings: The data showed a high degree of price correlation for the S2 and S3 models post release. The S2 and S3 had declined by almost 15% after three months and almost 25% after six months. If this trend were repeated for the S4, buyers would be able to purchase the handset outright for three-quarters of the original price half a year after its release. The change in price for the S2 was negligible in the period 6-12 months post release.
In addition to its recent smartphone-market study, price comparison website Idealo has analysed its historical pricing of the preceding two models of Samsung’s Galaxy S series, the Galaxy S2 and Galaxy S3. The results of this analysis, based on thousands of user clicks over nearly two years, can be observed in the graph below.
After three months on the market, the average prices of both the Galaxy S2 and S3 declined to slightly over 85% of their initial prices on Idealo. After six months, the average prices were only 75% of the initial prices on Idealo.
The average release price of the Galaxy S2 on Idealo was 466 GBP (532 Euro) in May 2011. It dropped by nearly 60 GBP (70 Euro) by August and 113 GBP (130 Euro) by November 2011. Over the next six months, the average price only decreased by less than 5%. But by November 2012, 18 months after the initial release, the average price of the Galaxy S2 on Idealo had fallen by more than 192 GBP (220 Euro).
The average release price of the Galaxy S3 on Idealo was 450 GBP (558 Euro) in June 2012. By September 2012, the Galaxy S3 was on average 66 GBP (75 Euro) cheaper. The price fell to 349 GBP (429 Euro) in December 2012, 112 GBP (128 Euro) less than in June.
Whatever the price unveiling of the S4 by Samsung may be, Idealo data would suggest that waiting three months could save you 15%, whilst holding out for six months could potentially save you 25% off of the S4′s initial price.
The launch event will be live streamed on March 14th at 19:00 EDT. However, if you’re staying up in Europe until close to midnight to watch it, you probably won’t be waiting for the price of the Galaxy S4 to drop over the next months anyway – and if you are, you might be six months away from the Galaxy S5.

Notes:
1) Price statistics used in the study are based on Idealo’s click statistics. Each time a user clicks on a product listed on Idealo, the listed price is stored. For every click registered each month, Idealo calculated the average price of the Galaxy S2 & S3 smartphone models. Prices are for SIM-free unlocked offers listed on Idealo portals in Germany, Austria, France, Italy and the UK. As Idealo users tend to click on offers for entry-level models, the average prices represent those of the entry-level 16 GB models. Prices in Pounds Sterling from Idealo UK were converted to Euro using the average exchange rate of each month.
2) The release price of the Galaxy S2 refers to the average click prices on Idealo during May 2011. The release price of the Galaxy S3 refers to the average click prices on Idealo during June 2012.