After the teardown made by iFixIt and Chipworks, iSuppli comes with a BOM, bill of materials, for iPhone 5 and claims that the terminal would have a production price of $207-238. This amount includes the price of the components and the assembly price, the company calculating the prices for each terminal separately, but also the "profit" obtained by Apple for each sale. The money left to the company after the sale of each terminal varies from 68 to 72% of the retail price, the 64 GB version of iPhone 5 bringing in the most money for Apple. These amounts are only estimates, so they should not be considered as final, they may be higher or lower, depending on the contracts signed by Apple.
The iPhone 5 exhibits a great deal of similarity to the iPhone 4S in terms of component suppliers," said Andrew Rassweiler, senior principal analyst, teardown services, for IHS. "But beyond this superficial resemblance, there are some critical changes to product design and parts that enable major upgrades that improve user experience. These range from the faster applications processor, to the larger display, to the high-speed 4G LTE air interface. And beyond some of the high-profile changes that bring obvious benefits in performance and features, there are myriad upgrades and enhancements to virtually every component and subsystem in the iPhone 5."
Making a comparison with iPhone 4S, the production price is only $11 higher in the case of the iPhone 5 16 GB, but it is $14 lower in the case of the 64 GB version. Yes, although it seems hard to believe, Apple pays less to produce the 5 GB iPhone 64 and the difference comes from the price of NAND memories, Apple contracting several new suppliers for these components. In the end, Apple makes hundreds of dollars for the sale of each iPhone and has managed to reduce the production cost compared to last year, and this in the conditions in which it has implemented some new components.
iPhone 4S suppliers making a return engagement with the iPhone 5 include Samsung, Qualcomm, Murata, Dialog, Texas Instruments, STMicroelectronics, Cirrus Logic, Avago, Skyworks, NXP and AKM. Nevertheless—from the advanced, $17.50 A6 processor manufactured by Samsung, down to the relatively simple $0.62 electronic compass from AKM Semiconductor—almost every part has been updated.
