Why the FM radio is disabled in US version of Samsung A52? I specifically bought a phone with FM radio chipset, only to find out is disabled in the US firmware.

I used to work for the likes of Samsung, and Sony.  What a lot of companies that say the chipset has FM radio and was regurgitated over and over forget to mention…  You need more than the radio for it to work.

For example you have the radio and you don’t connect the coms for that radio.  You can add ALL the software you want but if the coms are not connected it won’t work. Also if the headphone jack doesn’t have the radio antenna hardware connected you will not have an antenna.  Not to mention FCC licensing and certifications requirements regardless.  Even if it’s all connected just the radio removed IF it isn’t approved companies can be fined even banned for selling products.

An example of this is Nexus 4 and LTE.  Everyone gave excuses about it, but when people found a way to turn it on Google updated it to stop people from turning it on because it wasn’t approved by the FCC and had no intention on turning it on.

Now the not so known stuff.  Features that can be added manufacturers are NOT going to pay for it.  They will pass the buck to carriers IF they want the feature added.  An example of this when Verizon charged more for a particular Samsung devices people were mad they had to pay an additional $50 for seemingly the same device compared to other carriers. So if Manufacturers were not going to add it themselves carriers will have to pay and if they pay they’ll raise the price for the device.  Which could at times hamper the sale of the device.  Subsequently Samsung made it Samsung services standard the following year.   

I was just looking over at XDA.  I haven’t seen any recent threads about enabling the FM radio function on devices mentioned.  Back in the days of the S10’s and earlier, it was usually just a partial firmware change if installing a radio app didn’t work.