Apple's figures (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/23/apples_strong_quarter/) came out on Tuesday, revealing that all is going well in Cupertino, but analysts crawling over the details are trying to work out if they reveal anything else besides - such as the revenue cut Apple is getting from every iPhone in use.

The details of the deal Apple did with AT&T, and more recently with O2, T-Mobile and Orange in Europe, are under held under the greatest secrecy, so of course everyone wants to know. We all know that the iPhone is sold at a profit, and that a percentage of subscription revenue goes to Apple for every iPhone user, but getting to the actual figures isn't easy.

iSuppli did a great job pricing up all the bits of an 8GB iPhone at $265. It's been accurate in the past, so we've no reason to dispute its figure, which puts the income from every iPhone sold at $134.

Then there's the Apple cut from the subscription charged by the operator.

We nailed our colours (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/19/uk_iphone_at_last/) to the $3/$11 amount, for repeat/new subscribers respectively, calculated by analyst Gene Munster back in July. But based on Tuesday's figures Mr Munster has upped his estimate to $18 per subscriber. If true, that's $432 per customer over the two year contract, dwarfing the profit Apple makes on the hardware.

Given 1.8 million iPhones, Apple's due almost $800m over the next two years, after taking $240m on the hardware.

This goes a long way towards explaining why Apple is so keen to stop punters unlocking their handsets. Unlocked handsets don't bring in subscription revenue, though, of course, $240m isn't to be sniffed at it.

Not everyone agrees with Mr Munster's new figures. Richard Gardner from Citibank has examined the same statements from Apple and came up with $12 a month, and based on what we've heard we're sticking to the $3/$11 estimate.

Either way, it's clear that Apple has started the transition from a company selling a product to a company selling a service, while Nokia (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/29/nokia_music_store/) and Microsoft can only look on jealously as their own plans in that direction continue to flounder. ®

Related stories

• AT&T bestows international wireless plan on American iPhoners (3 November 2007)

  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/03/new_att_international_data_plan_for_american_iphone_owners/

• Microsoft racks up best quarter since 1999 (26 October 2007)

  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/26/ms_quarterlies/

• iSales prop up Apple results (23 October 2007)

  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/23/apples_strong_quarter/

• Apple: 1.4m iPhones sold, 250,000 unlocked (23 October 2007)

  http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/10/23/apple_iphone_unlocked_stats/

• Orange's Apple deal to bear unlocked iPhones (17 October 2007)

  http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/10/17/apple_orange_unlocked_iphones/

• Hackers hit back at iPhone update (3 October 2007)

  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/03/iphone_update_response/

• The iPhone arrives, but is O2 being taken for a ride? (19 September 2007)

  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/19/uk_iphone_at_last/