Apple’s new iPhones this year are definitely more expensive than ever, take for example the iPhone X which is priced starting at $999, a price tag that’s considerably higher than any base iPhone model we’ve seen. The iPhone 8 is priced lower and more reasonable at $699, although it is also a slight increase from before where the base iPhone 7 was priced at $649.
According to a report from Bloomberg that cites data from research firm IHS Markit, it seems that this is due to several new hardware components that Apple has chosen to use, such as the new A11 Bionic processor, flash memory, as well as the chassis of the iPhone in which the glass and mechanical enclosures are more expensive.
The total material cost for the iPhone 8 is said to be $247.51, versus the $237.94 of last year’s model. The iPhone 8 Plus is also more expensive to build with a reported material cost of $288.08, versus the iPhone 7 Plus which costs $270.88. Of course all of this pales in comparison to the iPhone X which is said to cost a whopping $581 to build.
However as we had previously noted, the cost of materials listed does not necessarily reflect the actual price of what Apple paid. This is because Apple could be paying heavily discounted prices due to their volume purchases, plus it also doesn’t factor in other costs related to making the iPhone, like R&D, marketing, prototyping, manpower hours, and so on, but we suppose at the very least it does somewhat explain why the iPhones this year are more expensive than before.
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