3 ms·
That $575 number is nonsensical; the iPhone 4S (the most expensive model) costs $599 off-contract. These phones do not cost $25 to make. The real number is some
by Xuzz 15y ago
That $575 number is nonsensical; the iPhone 4S (the most expensive model) costs $599 off-contract. These phones do not cost $25 to make. The real number is somewhere around $300, most of which paid by the carrier: http://www.asymco.com/2012/02/26/iphone-sine-qua-non/ http://www.asymco.com/2012/02/26/iphone-sine-qua-non/.
Regardless, doubling the pay for workers does not solve the real issue here. Their wages are already above average for Chinese factory workers in that area. If you want these workers to be paid a first-world wage, that's a much larger issue than how much Apple pays their final assembly workers.
Also, Foxconn does not build just phones. It's used by most desktop and laptop manufacturers, where Apple is certainly not in the lead, and to assemble all game consoles, where Apple doesn't even have products. Microsoft, for example, is responsible for the workers in the incident mentioned here: http://kotaku.com/5874706/report-mass-suicide-threats-at-xbox-360-plant http://kotaku.com/5874706/report-mass-suicide-threats-at-xbo... (I don't think Microsoft would have an issue paying more, for example.)
Now this is not to underplay the problems in Chinese manufacturing, of which there are many. But Apple is certainly not singularly able to make any changes here.
- masklinn 15y agoNo disagreement that $575 in profits per phone is nonsensical, but > the iPhone 4S (the most expensive model) costs $599 off-contract 649 according to the store, and that's for the 16GB version, the 64GB one is 849. According to http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_iphone/family/iphone/iphone4s http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_iphone/family/iph... anyway.
- cooldeal 15y ago>That $575 number is nonsensical; Well, then maybe Slashdot is wrong too: http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/12/04/08/0546247/google-earns-2-per-handset-apple-575 http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/12/04/08/0546247/google-ear... >"While Apple generates more than $575 in profit for every iOS device, and according to estimates in 2007 Apple earned more than $800 on every iPhone sold through ATT, Horace Dediu reports that Android generated less than $550m in revenues for Google between 2008 and the end of 2011, earning only $1.70 per year, per Android device — explaining how Apple is sucking up two thirds of the profit in the mobile phone business.
- bonch 15y ago> Well, then maybe Slashdot is wrong too It would be out of the ordinary for them not to be.
- ktizo 15y agoThat '$575 in profit' is, from the context, how much profit they make on average per year from an iOS device, not just the profit margin on the sale price, otherwise the comparisons to android's yearly profit would not make much sense.
- TazeTSchnitzel 15y agoYeah, they get a cut from contracts and also app sales.