I’m sure like with most technology plenty of you have wondered just how much of the arm and leg you paid for the flashy device actually went into making it.

With each new iPhone there’s always someone with enough time on their hands to go through and look into exactly how much the product actually cost to make. The results are surprising in an ‘I’m not really too surprised’ way. I think most of us have assumed that we are being over charged for our little devices or that the thousand odd dollars we pay doesn’t actually just cover the cost of the phone with a small margin for Apple. Bear in mind the figures below are all in US dollars.

When the new iPhone comes out it’s seen as top of the line and the height of technological advancements in mobile devices but are we surprised that the iPhone 5s only cost approximately $199 to produce including assembly costs of $8, whereas the cheaper 5c only cost Apple $173, including just $7 assembly costs? Surprisingly enough the cost of the iPhone 4 to make was remarkably similar being about $187 to produce with older models being around the $170-$180 mark.

Some of the key features that have amazed the world come as a bit of a shock when you look at their cost - for example the fingerprint sensor in the 5s costs only $7! Whereas the most expensive part of the iPhone is the display at $41.

A few studies have looked into how much it would cost Apple to bring production into the U.S and purely for the assembly of an iPhone it has been indicated that costs would increase by about $4 per phone, based on very general historical sales that would cost Apple $600 million more. This doesn’t include extra income tax or any other U.S based fees including cost of a production warehouse in the U.S. No wonder our iPhones are assembled in China!

 

What do you think of this cost? Are we being charged too much? Or is the price of an iPhone relevant and acceptable?