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Component cost of video iPod estimated at $151
While only Apple knows the exact cost to build the video iPod, a market research firm has dissected the device and came up with estimated bill of materials of $151. With a retail price of $299 for the 30 GByte version and $399 for the 60 GByte model, it looks like Apple is raking in a huge profit, but there is much than meets the eye.
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While only Apple knows the exact cost to build the video iPod, a market research firm has dissected the device and came up with estimated bill of materials of $151. With a retail price of $299 for the 30 GByte version and $399 for the 60 GByte model, it looks like Apple is raking in a huge profit, but there is much than meets the eye.
iSuppli did a "teardown" and put a price tag on every component. Chris Crotty, Senior Analyst for Consumer Electronics with iSuppli, said that the $151 is the total Bill-of-Materials (BOM) cost or simply just the hardware costs. The BOM takes into account an estimated discount rate for each component and typically large companies like Apple can negotiate a substantial discount because of their buying power. Crotty points to their recent teardown of the iPod Nano where they estimated Apple received a 30 to 40 percent discount on Samsung's flash memory.
Andrew Rassweiler, Manager and Senior Analyst of iSuppli's Teardown Service, has managed well over a hundred teardowns of electronic gear. He told us that, unlike other gadgets, every new product from Apple seems to have a completely different sign approach and they are usually surprised when they open up the devices. "We thought the new iPod would be a Nano with hard-drive, but we were wrong. There are some common chips and the click wheel is the same, but everything else is different," said Rassweiler.
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