3G iPhone packs in $100 of hardware - analyst
Asia manufacturers hear ring of tills, jump for joy
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Apple's 3G iPhone costs just $100 to make, it has been claimed. Yet Asian component makers are jumping for joy at the boost they expect the handset will make to their revenues.
The new iPhone's not even on sale yet, but US market watcher Portelligent has already totted up the cost of all the components - the bill of materials (BoM) - it believes the handset contains. It's guesstimate is $100, EE Times reports.
That's just the cost of the bits, mind. On top of that, Apple has to fund development, marketing, software, assembly and so on, but even so, Portelligent's figure is less than half the $280 that market watcher iSuppli estimated the 8GB 2.5G iPhone cost to make back in January 2007. After the handsets, launch Portelligent whittled that figure down to $170, though that number likely applies to the now defunct 4GB model.
Apple's 3G iPhone: kerching!
Apple will be selling the 8GB 3G iPhone for $199, less to its operator customers, who may then discount further on the back of hefty monthly fees - down to €1 in Germany or even nothing at all in the UK.
That's expected to boost demand for the phone, which was popular enough when it cost £269 over here, had a lower battery life, no 3G support and lacked GPS.
No wonder, as Chinese-language newspaper the Commercial Times reports, Taiwanese component manufacturers are rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of soaring sales driven by the iPhone.
The paper claims Morgan Stanley has forecast 2009 iPhone sales reaching 27m units, up from 5.2m in 2007. Apple has said it expects to sell 10m iPhones by the end of 2008.
COMMENTS
Not a surprise at all
Is El Reg's standard of journalism slipping that much that it has resorted to stating the bleedin' obvious.
First rule of business, keep the cost of providing the service or manufacturing the product as low as poss and sell it for as much as the market will stand, difference between the two is called the MARGIN!
Read another obvious story today (which did not have a comments section, hmmm wornder why) that stated that mobile ops had to buy Apple hardware and software to suppot the Apple iPhone and that this gave Apple the opportunity to mine the data if they wanted to, if the service is proprietory you have to have the kit to support it and Apple being Apple, will no doubt exploit this position somehow, they are becoming worse than Microsoft.
But what next, Reg reveals that trees are Green?
@What next?
"But ‘owning’ the device and its platform is now even more important as new mobile services they are developing depend on this to function as designed."
Agreed, look at RIM. But where does this leave WM? When you see what Apple are doing with MobileMe, it reminds you that Microsoft could have done this ages ago, they had all the tools, they perhaps just lacked the vision?
Don't forget frieght and retailer profits
You have to remember that getting the things from China to <subject home country here> also costs money. As does delivering them to each local vendor in <subject home town here>.
And retailers also get a cut too.
Thus a $200 RRP sounds fine, assuming that's for an unlocked/non-contract phone.
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