According to the research firm IHS, Samsung Galaxy S5 costs $256 to build. The bill of materials is dominated by that awesome screen which is estimated to cost $63. Samsung-made memory chips are $33, biosensor – $1.45, and fingerprint scanner – $4. In comparison, biometric chip built inside the iPhone 5s costs $15, though the entire iPhone 5s is estimated to cost $199 to build. The Galaxy S5 assembly costs about $5 per unit.
“Our main takeaway is that Samsung has been moved up to the higher end of the cost spectrum. It used to be that its typical flagship phone sod for $600 without a contract and had a bill of materials of about $200,” said IHS analyst Andrew Rassweiler. “Now they’re inching up above $250 regularly.”
You may think that Samsung is making an outrageous amount of cash, and you would be right. But, bear in mind these costs show how much the Galaxy S5 costs to build not to sell. Not included here are manuals, packaging, shipping & distribution, as well as marketing costs. What’s left for the Korean company is still an impressive amount of cash which is the premium they make for their R&D efforts. We see no problems with major handset makers making a ton of cash as long as they make cool products people want to buy. 😉
[Via: AndroidCommunity, recode]