Apple’s $1,149 iPhone X costs $412.75 to make, according to Chinese tech industry publication ichunt.com. While it’s the most expensive materials bill for an iPhone ever, the company is able to notch a 64 percent raw margin — research, development, administrative and various other costs will negatively factor some into that cut. And it will cost way more than $1,149 in the very country it was borne out of.

The largest price driver, by far, is the 5.8-inch OLED display component made by Samsung, but the $80 reported here is about one-third cheaper than what KGI Securities analyst Ming-chi Kuo has speculated upon. The second-costliest component is technically two things: the build, made of a stainless steel chassis and glass hyperbolae, which cost $53 together. The third is the NAND flash drive and, at 256GB, it’s at an amazing $45.

Other points of interest:

  • The multiple sensors that make up the facial recognition system for Face ID authentication only costs $25 as a package.
  • The Apple A11 chipset, made by TSMC, costs $26 per unit.
  • The cellular modem gets split between Intel’s 28nm XMM 7480 model for universal units and Qualcomm’s X16 LTE part (as seen on the Snapdragon 835) for US CDMA networks. On average, it’s $18 per unit.
  • To be fair, only $404.75 of the cost can be attributed to the device proper — accessories cost the extra $8.

The Chinese audience usually get a more extreme squeeze buying an iPhone as customers pay a premium to import it — irony being that the very parts and the phones as a whole are produced and assembled in the same country that imports the phones from the United States. Prices are usually 20 percent worse off in the country than in the United States. This year, it’s a bit worse than that with import margins nearing 30 percent.

Device

Memory

Price in China

US price equivalent

Difference from US price
iPhone 8

64GB

¥5,888

$900

+28.8%

256GB

¥7,188

$1,099

+29.4%

iPhone 8 Plus

64GB

¥6,688

$1,022

+27.9%

256GB

¥7,988

$1,221

+28.9%

iPhone X

64GB

¥8,388

$1,282

+28.3%

256GB

¥9,688

$1,481

+28.9%

Relative to pricing for the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus have taken increases along the same lines as what the United States saw, though, again, with import costs attached. Not a good sign for those looking at a hard ¥7,000 cap, approximately the average monthly wage of a Chinese laborer. Take a look at the full view of parts and costs at the source link below.