14 DAY TRIAL // An in-depth look at the quality of the display offered on the iPhone X revealed that the new model has the best screen currently available on the market, and it’s all thanks to a mix of Samsung hardware and Apple calibration.
And while the South Korean firm obviously played a critical role in making the iPhone X such an advanced piece of technology, it’s also the one to blame for the high price tag of the device, according to another analysis of the price of each component.
Specifically, the iPhone X display and touchscreen module that Samsung manufactured for the iPhone X costs no less than $110, according to IHS, while the rear enclosure, which includes all the parts that form the body of the device, such as the machine aluminum frame, the rear cover glass, and the stainless steel plate, has a price of $61.
Huge profit on the iPhone X
Despite being such a complex piece of technology, the TrueDepth 3D sensing camera that enables facial recognition on the iPhone X is one of the cheapest components, costing just $16.70, nearly as much as the RF chipset that includes the baseband processor, the mode, the RF transceiver, and the power management IC, and priced at $18.
Overall, the final cost of the iPhone X is $370.25, IHS says, and this estimate comes pretty close to the one made by TechInsights and pointing to a $357.50 total cost when buying parts in bulk for the device.
The cheapest iPhone X can be yours for $999 with 64GB of storage, so it’s pretty clear that Apple makes a huge profit on the device, despite the extra costs with R&D, marketing, and other operations associated with product development. It’s being estimated that Apple has a gross margin of 64 percent on the iPhone X, up from 59 percent from the iPhone 8, which costs just $288 to make.