The Samsung Galaxy S8 has a bill of materials (BOM) that cost $301.60 USD (approximately 407.57 CAD), according to a preliminary estimate by IHS Markit, making it much pricier than previous Samsung smartphones.
By comparison, this is about $43.34 USD ($58.57 CAD) higher than the S7 and $36.29 USD ($49.04 CAD) more than the S7 Edge, as per the London-based financial service company’s estimates.
Factoring in $5.90 USD ($7.90 CAD) for basic manufacturing costs, Samsung’s total cost to produce the S8 comes up to $307.50 USD ($415.47 CAD).
“The higher total BOM costs for the Galaxy S8 seem to be part of a trend that reflects something of an arms race in features among Apple, Samsung and other phone manufacturers, as they all try to add new and distinguishing hardware features,” said Andrew Rassweiler, senior director of cost benchmarking services for IHS Markit. “While there are new non-hardware features in the Galaxy S8, such as a virtual assistant called Bixby, from a teardown perspective the hardware in the Galaxy S8 and that of the forthcoming new iPhone is expected to be very similar.”
It’s worth noting that the report don’t take into account any costs that may be associated with research and development. IHS Markit also doesn’t offer a full breakdown of the price estimates of each component found in the phone. However, it does note that the NAND flash memory and DRAM cost $41.50 USD ($56.09 CAD) combined, while the 3,000 mAh battery comes in at $4.50 USD ($6.08 CAD).
The Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ are now available in Canada. A list of nationwide carriers and their respective prices can be found here.
For more information on the S8 and S8+, check out MobileSyrup‘s review.
Source: Business Wire
