iPhone 5 Estimated Component Costs Begin At $199

HIS iSuppi has published its estimate of the cost of iPhone 5’s bill of materials (BOM), which they made based on industry knowledge and information disclosed by Apple. The estimate, which doesn’t include many other costs associated with manufacturing, sales and product development, pegs the bill of materials of the entry-level iPhone 5 with 16 GB at $199. HIS iSuppi notes:

“When the $8.00 manufacturing cost is added in, the cost to produce the iPhone 5 rises to $207.00. For the 32Gbyte version of the iPhone 5, the BOM cost increases to $209.00, while 64Gbyte version is estimated at $230.00, as presented in the table (above)”.

The estimated $199 BOM for the 16 GB iPhone 5 is slightly higher than their estimate of $188 for the iPhone 4S made at the device’s launch last fall. However, over the past year the prices for flash storage have dropped by half, which allows Apple to improve margins with the increase in capacity. While the 64 GB and 32 GB iPhone 4S models carried BOMs of $245 and $207 respectively, estimates for iPhone 5 move to $230 and $209.

Compared to the iPhone 4S’ BOM, flash storage cost declined by around $10 on the entry-level 16 GB iPhone 5, but that drop was offset by a $10 increase in wireless section with the move to LTE-compatible chip and a $7 increase in cost of display due to addition of in-cell touch sensors. As for the 64 GB model, a $37 decrease in flash memory cost compared with the iPhone 4S allows Apple to overcome the other increases to reduce the overall estimated costs for this model.