The cost of iPhones is not cheap. Anyone who has purchased or wanted to purchase one of the Apple cell phones. The simple answer to explain the reason for the prices of the Cupertino giant is that the user is getting a durable and quality product.
However, in detail things seem to be more complex. That is why the firm Statista set out to understand how much money it costs Apple to manufacture an iPhone, with the intention of knowing what the profit could be for each copy sold.
The difference is great, but not everything is profit. Based on figures from the aforementioned firm, the site Slash Gear reports that in 2022 Apple became responsible for 48.7% of the cell phone population worldwide. There were about 120 million iPhones in the United States alone.
This is a brutal figure, which has no comparison in the world of smartphones. Statista clarifies in its report that Apple does not publish the production or manufacturing costs of its cell phones.
Therefore, in order to come up with an estimate, the firm had to unravel the components that make up an iPhone, in order to come up with an estimate of what the manufacturing cost of an iPhone would be.
Statista separates the processor, the interface display, the flash memory, the micro SIM controller, the modems, the cameras, scanners, battery and even the glass of the screens. These are all elements that Apple has to go out and buy in order to build a cell phone.
Apple buys from Sony (the cameras), Qualcomm (the processor and 5G modem), Samsung (the screen display) and other Chinese, Dutch, Swiss and American companies.
The costs have been increasing over the years. In 2007, it cost Apple $217.73 to make an iPhone, which it later sold for 500. But by 2019, things increased until it reached a manufacturing price of $450 for the iPhone 11 Pro Max, which they sold for USD $. 1,100.
It is too early to know how much it cost to manufacture the iPhone 15, but until the previous version the prices have remained similar. These represent differences that expressed in percentages would be 124%.
However, that’s not Apple’s profit. In between are workers, advertising, shipping, and everything else needed to keep a corporation afloat.