A unit at research company IHS has torn apart an iPhone 6 Plus and shows that though you’ll have to pay $100 more to buy 0.8 inches of screen, it only costs Apple $16 more to make.
That gives Apple an even bigger margin on this model than on others. That will please Apple shareholders.
The bill of materials of an iPhone 6 with 16HB of memory is $196.10, and the additional screen size makes the bill of materials $215.60.
Andrew Rassweiler, a senior director at IHS, said: “Apple has always been adept at offering higher end iPhone models with enhanced desirable features and then pricing those versions for maximum profitability.
“In the past, the premium versions of iPhone offered higher memory configurations for additional profit. While Apple continues this memory strategy, the company is also taking a similar with the iPhone Plus, structuring its pricing to add bottom line profits on models that have a very desirable feature: a large phablet sized display.”
IHS thinks that Apple is second sourcing the microprocessor, the A8, between TSMC and Samsung factories. The A8 chip in these latest models costs $20, compared to $17 for the previous versions that used an Apple A7 chip.
Here’s a breakdown of the component costs for the iPhone 5S and the new phones, courtesy of IHS:
