Since neither phone is entirely new, the results aren’t very surprising. The innards resemble the iPhone 5, with a few new bits in the iPhone 5S. Now the beancounters over at IHS weighed in with their own Bill of Materials assessment, which reveals a couple of interesting facts.
The iPhone 5S actually ends up cheaper to produce than the old iPhone 5. According to AllThingsD, which got the IHS report ahead of time, the iPhone 5S 16GB has a BoM of $191, while the 64GB model has $210 worth of components. The cost of assembly is another $8.
The iPhone 5C on the other hand has a BoM of $173 to $183, and that’s including the $7 for assembly. Many were calling it a margin booster for Apple, but we’re not sure it is. With a $100 lower price tag and a $26 lower BoM, Apple appears to have a much fatter margin on the 5S. In addition, the iPhone 5C is a lower tier product, so the iPhone 5S should probably sell a lot more 32GB and 64GB models, boosting margins yet again.
“I would say that they’re almost the same phone, except that the 5s has the fingerprint sensor, the A7 processor and some newer memory chips that consume less power. Beyond that, they’re basically the same,” said IHS analyst Andrew Rassweiler.
The overhyped fingerprint sensor adds $7 to the cost of the iPhone 5S, while the A7 SoC costs about $19. The 5S also features faster LPDDR3 memory, while the 5C retains LPDDR2.
