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Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq
We all know the profit margins on the hardware are high, yes, these are leading edge smartphones with some of the most advanced consumer technology in the world in them. R&D costs (which you don't see) are also high.
While I don't disagree they also make a crapton of profits on this stuff, certain companies have done professional analysis of how much the components and manufacturing costs - and as I say, they conclude the iPhone 5 costs over $200 for hardware alone before the cost of distribution and developing iOS are added on top. The S4 costs about $245 in pure components and manufacturing, the iPhone 4s cost between $196 and $254. Simply put, some loony raving "The iphone 4S cost apple £81.87 to build and the 5 was £103 to build." is horseshit.
Incidentally when you see the marketing for these new products a lot of emphasis is put onto the new software features, not the hardware. The only significant hardware change on the iPhone 5s was the fingerprint sensor, and that cost less than $15. Knowing a good few software developers and designers, it does irk me that some people seem to think software and design magically come for free and the only cost of making something is the physical hardware.
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for software cost a guideline could be the oem fees for windows.
I think oem's were paying something like £15 per device sold to microsoft and that was profitable to microsoft (so cost was lower). In terms of samsung and other android vendors, google make android, samsung make the touchwiz overlay on top for their own phones and some custom apps. It does cost money, pointless arguing with that but my guess is the software development doesnt amount to billions. Apple software all in house with ios although I think before ios7 the updates were less of an overhaul.
apple have almost 100billion usd sitting in the bank.