14 DAY TRIAL // Many have said the iPhone will be a commercial failure. They think it's way too expensive (and this is true), and there are other similar, less costly products delivered by leading companies in the mobile phone industry. They say people will not fall in Apple's trap to gain more money. Well, I'm not one of 'those people'. I think the iPhone will sell and looks like manufacturers believe the same.
News today talks about the competition between manufacturers to get contracts for the iPhone. Manufacturers think the iPhone will bring lots of money to Apple and they want to get some of it. This 'some of it' may actually be 'much of it', considering the estimated cost for building an iPhone device is around $280, about half its sell price.
iSuppli has made some research on the matter and found Hon Hai to be one of the leading competitors in this manufacturers race. The company assembles Apple's iPod Nano. Also, they've named Samsung, that would continue to produce NAND flash memories, and Wolfson, manufacturer of audio chips.
Other members of the iPhone building team could be: Marvell for supplying the iPhone's 802.11 wireless connectivity, Catcher Technology for the casing, Micron for the camera, CSR for Bluetooth chip-sets. Intel has competition on delivering the CPUs. Apple is considering Renesas, a Japanese manufacturer that may be more familiar with compact devices.
The 50 percent profit for iPhone is unusually large for consumer electronics and it's likely Apple will keep most of it. The manufacturers won't get rich over night, even if the iPhone sells like crazy. Let the AT&T (ex-Cingular) contract be an example to manufacturers of how Apple does business.