It’s always interesting to find out exactly how much an iPhone costs to build. Now, thanks to the guys at iSuppli, we have a pretty good idea.
According to the site – after doing a teardown – the components used to build the iPhone 4S come to around $188 in total, plus $8 manufacturing costs (for the 16GB model). For the 32GB and 64GB versions, we’re looking at component costs of around $207 and $245 respectively.
“The estimates do not include other costs involved in product development, manufacturing, and sales, such as research and development, software, patent licenses, marketing, and distribution expenditures.”
Let’s say you wanted to buy an unlocked iPhone 4S, the 16GB model would cost $649, netting Apple a profit of around $453 (before deducting shipping costs/staff etc.) Similarly the 32GB ($749) and 64GB ($849) models would net Apple a profit of $534 and $595 respectively.
Like MacRumors mentions, there are other costs involved that we don’t see here. However, profit margins are still high compared to other phone manufacturers. There’s a reason why Apple has $80 billion sitting in the bank.
