Samsung is allegedly increasing smartphone repair prices in South Korea | Infinium-tech

Rising component prices forced Samsung to raise the prices of some of its phones in many regions. But the impact of current market conditions reaches further than that – repair costs are also rising.

According to the report, Samsung has increased the price of smartphone repair materials by an average of 5% in its home country South Korea chosun. Other segments have also been affected – for example the price of materials for home appliance repairs is now 9% higher on average.

To put this in monetary terms, the average smartphone repair job became KRW 11,000 more expensive – this translates to $7.37 / €6.45 / £5.50 / ₹705. It’s not much, but it’s something to keep in mind.

Most of the expense when repairing an appliance, 80%, comes from replacement parts. The rest is labor costs and service charges, which will not change. “Material costs have increased, leading to inevitable price increases. Labor and service charges remain the same as before.” A Samsung Electronics service official said.

LG Electronics plans to keep the repair costs of its devices the same for now – alas, LG no longer makes phones. Again, this report concerns repair services in South Korea, but the situation is similar around the world.

We know what you’re thinking – AI has made memory expensive. And that’s true, but smartphone RAM and storage aren’t actually components that can be repaired (usually, the entire motherboard is replaced if there’s a problem with one or the other).

chosun Points the finger at high prices of raw materials (such as copper and gold), which were caused by instability in the Middle East, among other factors. An unnamed manufacturer told Korea’s Ministry of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises and Startups that “Raw material prices increased by almost 60% in the first half of this year due to supply and raw material shortages.”

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