That $599 iPhone Costs $220 To Make

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As a follow up on our earlier post about Apple’s $300 million iPhone weekend – January estimates guessed that Apple was making 20-50% margins on the iPhone (probably closer to 20%).

New estimates, based on a tear down of a unit by Austin-based Portelligent, put the cost of components at a mere $220. This does not include the cost of final assembly.

The most expensive part is the touch screen, (probably) produced by a German company called Balda. The estimated cost of the screen is around $60. Samsung produced the main microprocessor chip and the NAND-type flash memory.

The production cost of the much less popular 4 GB version of the iPhone is $200.