Ask Jerry: Why don't all phones come to all places?

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Why do some phones only show up for sale in some places?

T asks:

Why do companies build phones that are never for sale in all countries? I've seen several phones I would like to buy if they were available here.

And several people have been more specific:

When will the Samsung Galaxy A56 come to the U.S.?

Thanks for the question(s), guys and gals; this is another really good one with an interesting answer, and those are my favorite ones!

I'll answer the second part first because it's easier and a lot simpler: only Samsung knows. OK, well, maybe company execs at Verizon know, too, but you get what I mean. Samsung suggested that the phone will launch in the U.S. market, but never said anything more specific than "later in 2025," and that doesn't mean much. It might never come, because of the overall answer of why phones are sold in specific places.

I'm not suggesting that Samsung is lying or anything. The A56 may show up for sale tomorrow, but it may not; it all depends on Samsung's thoughts of its place in the market. That's a big part of the whole picture.

At the root of it all is (you guessed it) money. A company like Samsung wants every model it makes to be a hit, selling millions of units. Many of them are universal — minor hardware differences aside, you can buy a Galaxy S25 almost anywhere. Things get a little murkier from there. There has to be a market for a phone to sell.

With so many different phones to choose from, it can be hard to build something that's best in a specific price range, size, or any other metric you can think of. A company also has to compete with itself sometimes — you might not buy a base model S25 if you can get the A56 a little cheaper.

Ideally, Samsung wants both the S25 and A56 to sell like hotcakes. The company has gigantic marketing teams who get into the science of figuring out the consumer smartphone market so that the right phones are released at the right time to the right places.

A company that makes phones only does it for one reason: to sell them and make a profit. No matter if it's a huge company like Samsung or a small company like Fairphone, the idea is to build and sell products like every other business that's not a bonafide charity.

Sometimes there's a quasi-technical reason. Phones designed for use in different countries may need specific hardware and software inside so they work on the available networks. Building different models, then testing those models, and getting regulatory approval to sell them costs money. If a company doesn't think it can sell enough to make a profit, it may not release it in certain markets.

Additionally, patents and royalties can come into play and restrict where a phone can be sold. Thankfully, that's mostly a thing of the past.

Pure speculation: With the Galaxy S25 being new, the S25 edge due any minute now, and a (hopefully) well-priced new Galaxy Z Flip on the horizon, now is not the time to release a $500 Galaxy A56 in the company's biggest consumer market.

That doesn't mean there won't be a right time later; companies like Google (and probably Apple) will show off a budget model later in the year, and that could be the time for Samsung to jump in with its own.

Or maybe the company will change its mind completely and never sell it in the U.S. The one thing we can be sure of is that Samsung spends a lot of time and money to find the answers because that's part of its business. A lot of companies make great products, but very few can move the numbers that Samsung does.

If I were looking for a new phone right now, I'd keep an open mind and check out every company's website to see what they're talking about. If it looks like exactly what I needed was right around the corner, I would wait a little bit, but if not, I would decide based on what's available right now that fits my needs and budget.