iPhone 8 hardware costs revealed

Apple launched the new iPhone 8 series at its 2017 Fall New Product Launch Conference on September 12, and it was released on September 22. The iPhone 8 series has thus become one of the most expensive phones Apple has ever released, and there has been much discussion about Apple's pricing. Now, research institutions have analyzed the material costs of the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus and found that at least this part of the cost has indeed increased.

According to a report released by market research firm IHS Markit, the bill of materials for the 64GB iPhone 8 Plus costs about $288.08, higher than the $277.66 for the iPhone 7 Plus. The iPhone 8 Plus is priced at $799, $30 more than the iPhone 7 Plus. The bill of materials for the 64GB iPhone 8 costs $247.51, nearly $10 more than the iPhone 7, and the price is $50 higher.

Although the starting memory of the iPhone 8 series has doubled compared to the iPhone 7, and the price of memory chips has generally increased this year, the increase in memory costs is also expected, but this is not the entire cost increase of the iPhone 8. The memory cost of the highest storage 256GB has only increased by $6. The increased costs are mainly in wireless charging and the new A11 processor. The cost of wireless charging components has increased by $2 compared to the iPhone 7 series, and the A11 processor has increased by $5 compared to the A10 processor in the iPhone 7 series. In addition, the new iPhones all support wireless charging, for which Apple has switched to a glass shell and added a new Broadcom controller, which has increased the cost by about $2.

IHS Markit did not give the cost price of the iPhone X, which starts at $999, but the cost of the iPhone X will be higher due to the addition of the OLED screen and Face ID. Previously, Susquehanna International Group gave the cost of iPhone X parts as $581, accounting for 58% of the $999 price, much higher than the less than 40% of the iPhone 8. The low yield rate of the iPhone X has been repeatedly exposed, resulting in a lower profit margin than the iPhone 8.

Of course, the cost given by IHS Markit is only the total cost of the iPhone 8 series components, that is, the hardware cost, and has not yet taken into account the costs of software, early research and development, and marketing. Obviously, the actual cost of the iPhone 8 series will be much higher than IHS Markit.