iSuppli Estimates iPhone 3GS Cost to Make; $178.96

by Jody Mitoma on June 26, 2009 at 9:42 pm

The table and cost data presented in this article [to the right] consist only of the iPhone 3G S’s BOM. The total does not include other costs, including manufacturing software development, shipping and distribution, packaging, royalty fees and miscellaneous accessories included with each phone. [iSuppli]

iSuppli informs us that the Bill of Materials (BOM) and features are set nearly the same as the iPhone 3G, however a dissection conducted by iSuppli Corp.’s Teardown Analysis team reveals some interesting changes in the parts and suppliers.

“The entry-level, 16Gbyte version of Apple Inc.’s new iPhone 3G S carries a BOM cost of $172.46 and a manufacturing expense of $6.50, for a total of $178.96,” said Andrew Rassweiler, director and principal analyst, teardown services, for iSuppli. “This is slightly higher than iSuppli’s estimate of $174.33 for the original 8Gbyte iPhone 3G based on pricing in July 2008. Although the retail price of the 16Gbyte iPhone 3G S is $199, the same as for the 8Gbyte version of the original iPhone 3G, the actual price of the phone paid by the service provider is considerably higher, reflecting the common wireless industry practice of subsidizing the upfront cost of a mobile phone and then making a profit on subscriptions.”

Toshiba Corp. scored the biggest single design win in the 3G S, with its 16Gbyte Multilevel-Cell (MLC) NAND flash costing $24. With the price of NAND flash having risen in recent months due to supply constraints, this represents a lucrative design win for Toshiba. However, while Toshiba was the supplier of the NAND in the specific 3G S torn down by iSuppli, the part is available from other sources that Apple is likely to use, most notably Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.

Samsung also maintained its position as iPhone’s applications processor supplier. Priced at $14.46, the applications processor is the fourth most costly component in the iPhone 3G S after the NAND flash, the display module and the touch-screen assembly. [iSuppli]

For more information, check out iSuppli’s detailed write-up of the dissection.

via iSuppli

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