Labor costs related to Chinese iPhone 4G manufacturing is $6.54 dollars (4.6 euros) per unit, which means it’s 1.1% of its selling price, according to market research firm iSuppli.
This number is striking specially in conjunction with the report on the working conditions at Foxconn, a company responsible for making the iPhone and based in China, recently mired in controversy due to a wave of employee suicides. In contrast, the report highlights that Apple’s iPhone profit margins are around 60%.
Last June, iSuppli also calculated the total production cost of the device at $188 (152.4 euros). The analysis was based on the 16 GB version of iPhone 4, which could be purchased for $199 (161.3 euros) in the United States, which had an added contract plan with AT&T. Some of the prices of the components were, for example, the gyroscopic chip at $ 2.6 (2.1 euros), the A4 chip manufactured by Samsung, $ 10.75 (8.7 euros). The most expensive part was the device display, manufactured by LG Display at a cost of $28.5 dollars (23 euros).
But those studies ignore taxes, ignore regulations, ignore the entire manufacturing culture that Apple has created in China with entire cities built for one purpose, it ignores the workers comp law suits and the cost of buidling the factories here with all the liberal EPA regs and so on…..this study is bullshit..if it were not…if it were really that easy, Apple would certainly have built their factories here simply so they wouldn’t put up with the bullshit moaning of people like you.
When people who don’t understand business talk about business, it’s ugly.