There are a few steps that usually take place after a big product is launched: first benchmarks, then teardown and then cost evaluation. The latter two are summed up in the following lines, that reveal the production cost of the Galaxy S4, which is $236.
The device got the virtual teardown treatment from the folks of IHS iSuppli, who came up with that sum. Keep in mind that this is not the actual teardown, but a virtual one, with the handset processed through the Mobile Handset Cost Model Service from iSuppli. That’s a pretty big jump from the Galaxy S III cost from last year and iSuppli claims that this is due to the upgrades of the display, sensors and APU. The HSPA+ S4 with 16 GB of storage costs $244 to make, including the $8.50 manufacturing fee.
This sums it up to a total of $30.40 more expensive than the Galaxy S III. The new display and touch subsystem alone cost $75, it would appear, while the Exynos 5 Octa core processor goes for $30, almost double the price of the S III CPU. Strangely enough, the LTE version is cheaper, at $233. This means Samsung is ready to make a profit of about $500 per unit sold, which is double what they spent on it…
