iPod Classic to ring till loudly for Apple, analyst says
Kerching!
Apple's $349 160GB iPod Classic contains $190 worth of components, it has been claimed. While the remaining $159 isn't all profit, it still means the Mac maker does very nicely, thank you, out of every Classic it sells.
The figures come from market watcher iSuppli, which regularly disassembles iPods to calculate how much they cost to make. The 80GB Classic - reviewed here - contains $127 worth of parts and retails for $249, iSuppli said.
On to those bill-of-material (BoM) costs, you've got to add a cut of the software development cost and a share of the money Apple pays for the players to be assembled, packaged, distributed, marketed and sold. Still, the figures point to healthy profits for Apple, and there's nothing wrong with that. It'll subsidise the new, much lower iPhone price very nicely, we'd say.
Interestingly, the previous, 30GB iPod had a BoM of $143, according to iSuppli, so Apple has been able not only to increase its profit margin on the new models, but do so with iPods that offer significantly higher capacities than before.
iSuppli said it reckons Apple will sell 3.1m iPod Classics this year. That sounds a big number, but it's peanuts to the 26m third-generation Nanos and Touches the analyst believes will be purchased by the end of 2007.
Kerching!
COMMENTS
Baloney
I've never had any problems with Apple warranty, I brought my gen 5 in with a weak battery after a year and a half, and not so much as a blink, instant new iPod.
My Macbook pro had a wonky superdrive, same thing not even a wait, instant replace, I wish other companies, say DELL for example were as good maybe I wouldn't have gone Mac.
Heh.
I gave in and sold my soul for an iPod classic 160GB player. While I've only had it a few days It's serving me well and I definately am glad I paid the money for it. It doubles up as a nice tiny portable hard drive.
Back in the real world..
...you had a problem and that isn't good and i can understand you weren't dealt with particularly well, however to suggest that just because you had an issue that everyone else will is daft.
The iPod sells in huge numbers and sure some folks have problems but i bet it's a very small number and the only issue i've had with any of my iPods in the past 6 years was dealt with very quickly, admittedly i went in store (maybe you should?) but walked out with a new iPod straight away.
They're just the best product out there.
Apple don't honour their warranties
Would never buy an apple product again. Bought a 5th gen iPod 11 months ago and lost audio through one of the headphone channels while on holidays. Relieved it was still under warranty I sent it back to apple. 2 days later I get an email telling me it wouldn't be fixed due to "accidental damage or misuse". After an hour on hold I got on to a customer rep who told me that he had a picture of my iPod that showed there was sand between the cover and the screen. I explained that it couldn't possibly be sand as it had never been near a beach and it may have been dust from the inside of my pocket where it lived for the last year (Apple only do a visual inspection they don't open the unit). He then went on to explain it was IMPOSSIBLE for dust to enter the unit without me damaging it and that they won't be honouring my warranty. Talk about doing your best to avoid replaceing a 10 dollar part.
Would recommend anyone thinking of purchasing one of these to look at a competing product before they consider one of these.
As for an iPod being hermetically sealed ... I suggest apple search youtube and they'll see people opening these devices with guitar pics.
