The iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus arrived on retail shelves at the end of last week. While the fervor for the new phones seems to have cooled a bit since the last release, it appears that Apple is spending a tad bit more when it comes to building them.
According to research firm IHS Markit, the new iPhone 8 costs Apple around $247 in materials to build. This is for the base model of the phone with 64GB of storage and does not include other costs that need to be considered like manufacturing, research, marketing, and more. This puts the price slightly higher from last year"s data which put the iPhone 7 at $237.94 for the 32GB model. The base model iPhone 8 is being offered at a starting price of $699, which is $50 more than last year"s base model iPhone 7.
As for the larger sibling, the iPhone 8 Plus, IHS states that the components cost around $288, which is also an increase from last year"s iPhone 7 Plus which came in at around $270. This is all quite interesting, but what will be more fascinating is to see what the cost breakdown of the highly anticipated iPhone X will be, which is set to arrive in November.
Source: Bloomberg | Image via iFixit
Editor"s note: The title of this article was updated after publication to reflect that the materials of the iPhone 8 cost around $247.51. This is not the cost of "building" the device itself - which would include assembly, research and development, and more. We apologize for the oversight.