Samsung Galaxy S launch impact on trade-in prices (2025-2026): the launch that didn't move prices
Galaxy S24 trade-in offers fell 7% around the S25 launch. A year later, S25 offers held flat through the S26 launch and lost less by May. Weekly data, two launches.
Key takeaways
2026 had no launch effect. Galaxy S25 trade-in offers stood at the same level two weeks after the Galaxy S26 arrived as two weeks before.
2025 followed the textbook pattern. Galaxy S24 offers fell 7.1% around the S25 launch, most of it in the two weeks between the Unpacked event and the release.
The outgoing model held its value better in 2026. By the end of May, S25 offers were 11.6% below early December, against 16.1% for the S24 a year earlier.
Does a new Galaxy S push trade-in prices down?
Samsung launches its new Galaxy S flagship every winter, and trade-in desks expect the outgoing model to lose value when it does. We tracked trade-in offers for the outgoing standard Galaxy S through the last two launches, from early December to the end of May, to measure the launch impact each time.
In 2025 the launch did what the market expected. In 2026 it barely registered.
Two launches, year by year
The Galaxy S26 launch left S25 trade-in offers flat
A year earlier, Galaxy S24 offers fell 7.1% around the S25 launch. In 2026, S25 offers didn't move until mid-April, and lost less by the end of May (−11.6% vs. −16.1%).
Trade-in price index for the outgoing standard Galaxy S, early December = 100
Source: RecommerceIQ trade-in price monitoring. Grade A offers for the outgoing standard Galaxy S in base storage (2025: Galaxy S24 128GB, 2026: Galaxy S25 128GB) from European trade-in vendors. Lines smoothed over two weeks.
| Year | Launch | Around the launch |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Galaxy S25 → Galaxy S26 | 0.0% |
| 2025 | Galaxy S24 → Galaxy S25 | −7.1% |
Change in trade-in offers from two weeks before to two weeks after the week of the Galaxy Unpacked event (22 January 2025 for the Galaxy S25; 25 February 2026 for the Galaxy S26).
2026: the launch that didn't move prices. Galaxy S25 offers drifted about 5% lower from early December to late January, the usual winter slide. Then they stopped. Through February and March, including the week of the Galaxy S26 Unpacked event on 25 February, offers held within a point of the same level. The decline only resumed in mid-April, about seven weeks after the launch, and by the end of May offers were 11.6% below early December.
2025: a two-step drop. Galaxy S24 offers slipped about 6% from early December to the week of the Galaxy S25 Unpacked event on 22 January 2025. They then fell another 5.6% in the two weeks to the S25 release on 7 February. After that, offers held flat through March before sliding again from April, ending May 16.1% below early December.
The difference in 2026 is not specific to Samsung. Later the same year, iPhone 17 trade-in offers rose after Apple's launch (see our iPhone launch analysis), and used Apple computer prices climbed on marketplaces as memory costs rose (see our MacBook price analysis). In 2026, older flagships have been holding their value better than the launch calendar would suggest.
What this means for recommerce operators
- 1Don't pre-cut offers on the launch calendar alone. Cutting Galaxy S25 offers ahead of the S26 launch, as the 2025 pattern suggested, would have meant paying less than the market for about seven weeks.
- 2Watch the weeks after the launch, not just launch week. In 2026 the outgoing model's decline started in mid-April, well after the launch. Stock bought in March at March prices was exposed to that later drop.
- 3Live monitoring beats last year's playbook. Two consecutive Galaxy S launches produced two different patterns. Competitor price monitoring that shows what is happening this cycle, week by week, is how you see it in time.
Frequently asked questions
Do Galaxy S trade-in prices drop when a new Galaxy S launches?
Not always. In 2025, trade-in offers for the Galaxy S24 fell 7.1% in the four weeks around the Galaxy S25 Unpacked event, most of it between the event and the phone's release. In 2026, offers for the Galaxy S25 held flat through the Galaxy S26 launch on 25 February 2026 and only started falling again about seven weeks later.
What happened to Galaxy S25 trade-in prices when the Galaxy S26 launched?
Almost nothing. Galaxy S25 trade-in offers drifted about 5% lower from early December to late January, then held flat: they stood at the same level two weeks after the Galaxy S26 Unpacked event on 25 February 2026 as two weeks before. The decline resumed in mid-April, and by the end of May offers were 11.6% below early December.
What happened to Galaxy S24 trade-in prices when the Galaxy S25 launched?
They dropped in two steps. Galaxy S24 offers slipped about 6% from early December to the week of the Galaxy S25 Unpacked event on 22 January 2025, then fell another 5.6% in the two weeks to the S25 release on 7 February. They held flat through March, then slid again, ending May 16.1% below early December.
How much does a Galaxy S phone lose in trade-in value after a new model launches?
In our data, the outgoing standard Galaxy S lost 12-16% of its trade-in value between early December and the end of May: 16.1% for the Galaxy S24 in 2025 and 11.6% for the Galaxy S25 in 2026. In 2025 much of the drop came around the launch; in 2026 almost none of it did.
Methodology
Device. The outgoing standard Galaxy S in its base storage, Grade A condition: Galaxy S24 128GB (2025) and Galaxy S25 128GB (2026). Plus, Ultra and FE models are excluded.
Data. Every trade-in offer quoted by European trade-in vendors and collected daily by RecommerceIQ, across Switzerland, Germany, France, Italy, the UK and Greece.
Terms. We use "trade-in" because it's the term most readers search for, but what we track is the cash offer a specialist recommerce platform or retailer quotes for buying a device outright, not the credit issued at a carrier or manufacturer trade-in counter. In our glossary, this is what we define as buyback.
Window. 26 weeks from 1 December to 31 May in each cycle. Week 1 is 1–7 December.
Index. Each vendor's offers are averaged by week. Each week, every vendor's price is compared with its own price the week before, and the weekly change is the geometric mean of those ratios, with each vendor weighted equally. The changes are chained into an index where week 1 = 100. Because every vendor is only compared with itself, vendors joining or leaving during the window do not move the index, and no currency conversion is needed.
Chart. Lines use a two-week moving average for readability. All figures in the text use the unsmoothed index.
Related reading
iPhone launch impact on trade-in prices (2023-2026): the year offers went up
After the iPhone 18 Pro launch, iPhone 17 trade-in offers rose almost 6%. In 2023-2025 the outgoing model slid 12-17% by late November.
Read article →Market IntelligenceRecommerce specialists vs retail chains: who offers the best buyback price?
Live buyback price data shows recommerce specialists pay 21–48% more than retail chains for the same devices, but cover only 14–36% of the catalogue.
Read article →See what this year's launch is doing to your models
RecommerceIQ monitors trade-in prices across 30+ platforms daily, so you can price the outgoing model on what the market is doing now, not on what it did last year.
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