iPhone 5 sleuth work points to $199 component costs
Virtual deconstruction
Each iPhone 5 costs Apple $207 to make, it has been estimated.
Actually, make that 'guessed'. Market watcher IHS iSuppli hasn't had an iPhone 5 to take apart yet, so it's presumably had to work from the component photos leaked onto the internet over the past few months and from its knowledge of the phone's capabilities and the parts required to deliver them.
The result: a basic $199 bill-of-materials price for the 16GB iPhone 5 plus eight bucks to pay Foxconn to put all the bits together - $207 in total.
iSuppli estimates that figure rises to $217 for the 32GB model and $238 for the 64GB.
Apple wants £529, £599 and £699 for the three versions, so you can see how much its cashing in on the extra Flash, even if iSuppli's numbers are broadly right.
Not that the Flash is the defining component, price-wise. That's the display, with its new in-cell touchscreen technology. iSuppli reckons the 1136 x 640 panel costs $44 a pop, more than the iPhone 4S' display, which costs $37, though Apple saves a buck or two by not requiring a separate touchpanel.
The addition of LTE ups the radio sub-system cost to $34 from the $24 is pays for the 4S' version. The A6 system-on-a-chip is estimated to cost $17.50 - the A5 cost $15. Flash has never been cheaper and contributes $10.40 for each 16GB added. The 8Mp camera costs $18. ®
COMMENTS
This is a troll
Why don't people just add an SD card at a fraction of the cost, like I do with my Android phone?
Time and time again we will get into these stupid discussions about component costs.
Products cost money to design, write software for, produce, ship, distribute, support, market etc.. Plus you are trying to make a profit on it so you can grow your business and keep shareholders happy.
A CD costs pennies to make, but sell for more as sound engineers, programmers, producers, mastering engineers, musicians, record company employees don't all work for free.
Markup?
I read something saying that they're ALL at it, not just Apple. Apparently they're all selling products for MORE than the purchase cost of their component parts.
The world needs to wake up and see what's really going on!
Hardware's cheap, licenses, marketing, R&D and, lawyers are expensive.
Anyone who thinks the margins are huge should try to design their own electronic product, see how long it takes them. They cost a lot to design and you also have all the mandatory tests, FCC, CE and so on.
Nobody in the industry works for free.
