iSuppli's Teardown Analysis of Apple iPhone
In terms of cost, iSuppli Corp.'s teardown analysis of Apple Inc.'s iPhone offered few surprises, with its Bill-of-Materials (BoM) closely conforming with our preliminary functional estimate issued in January. However, in terms of suppliers, the iPhone is packed with surprises, with newcomers Infineon Technologies AG, National Semiconductor Corp. and Balda providing key components in the product — along with established component makers like Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. — according to iSuppli's Teardown Analysis service.
"iSuppli's teardown, conducted this weekend, determined that the 8Gbyte version of the iPhone has a total hardware BoM and manufacturing cost of $265.83, generating a margin in excess of 55 percent on each 8Gbyte iPhone sold at the $599.00 retail price," said Andrew Rassweiler, principal analyst for iSuppli.
In January, before iPhones were available for physical teardown, iSuppli estimated a $264.85 hardware BoM and manufacturing cost for the 8Gbyte iPhone. Note that these costs do not include royalties and logistics expenses.
iPhone Semiconductor Winners
Infineon, a new supplier to the iPod family, was among the biggest winners in terms of semiconductor content. The German semiconductor supplier contributed the digital baseband, radio-frequency transceiver and power-management devices, providing much of the core communications capability of the iPhone. Altogether, Infineon's silicon content accounted for $15.25 worth of the iPhone's BoM, representing 6.1 percent of the 8Gbyte version of the product's total cost.
National's contribution to the iPhone BoM is relatively small, with its lone chip in the product costing $1.50, which represents less than 1 percent of total product cost. However, the part-a serial display interface-represents an important design win for National, which has never had a part in an iPod.
TPK Solutions (Balda) gets touch screen module, Epson gets display
One of the key features of the iPhone is the display, and the supplier for the display module in the model torn down by iSuppli was Balda of Germany in association with its partner TPK Holding of China. The module costs an estimated $27, representing 10.8 percent of the 8Gbyte model's cost.
About iSuppli Corporation
iSuppli Corporation is the global leader in technology value chain research and advisory services. iSuppli provides market intelligence services for the EMS, OEM and supplier communities in addition to servicing consumer electronics and media concerns. Services afforded by iSuppli range from electronic component research to device-specific application market forecasts, from teardown analysis to consumer electronics and from display device and systems research to multimedia content and services.
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