The much-anticipated new Apple Watch has the lowest hardware costs compared to retail price of any Apple phone on the market.
The teardown of the Apple Watch Sport by IHS Technology estimates that the actual hardware costs are only about 24 per cent of the manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP).
According to preliminary estimates by IHS and its Teardown Mobile Handsets Intelligence Service, estimated hardware cost to MSRP ratios for other Apple products reviewed by IHS are in the range of 29 to 38 per cent.
The teardown of the Apple Watch Sport 38 mm shows a bill of materials of $US81.20 with the cost of production rising to $US83.70 when the $US2.50 manufacturing expense is added.
At present, the retail price of the Apple Watch Sport 38 mm is $US349.00 with IHS Technology analysis not including logistics, amortised capital expenses, overhead, SG&A, R&D, software, IP licensing and other variables throughout the supply chain such as the EMS provider.
“It is fairly typical for a first-generation product rollout to have a higher retail price versus hardware cost,” says Kevin Keller, senior principal analyst-materials and cost benchmarking services, IHS Technology.
“While retail prices always tend to decrease over time, the ratio for the Apple Watch is lower than what we saw for the iPhone 6 Plus and other new Apple products, and could be of great benefit to Apple’s bottom line if sales match the interest the Apple Watch has generated.”
New Features and Manufacturing Methods
There are several new features and manufacturing methods used in the Apple Watch Sport, including: a Pulse Oximeter, Force Touch sensor, "Taptic Engine" feedback, encapsulated modular printed circuit board (PCB) assembly and stacked-die integrated circuits (IC).
“While these features have been promoted by Apple and none are necessarily revelatory,” Keller adds.
“It is noteworthy that many features are appearing for the first time – in combination – in one device. It could be a bellwether for other future Apple products.”
For example, the Taptic Engine built into the Apple Watch, and integrated with the loudspeaker, contains a linear actuator which provides haptic feedback and vibrations.
“We found that the device consumes a substantial amount of space inside the watch, and we would expect further miniaturisation of this function in future iterations of the product,” Keller adds.
For Keller, the preliminary results of the teardown do not show any big surprises in the IC content as all of the manufacturers identified so far were expected.
The Apple Watch NAND memory is a Toshiba Flash 8GB and DRAM is a Micron SDRAM 512MB. Broadcom, STMicro, Maxim, Analog Devices and NXP are used for connectivity and interface.
But as Keller points out, one noteworthy change is a shift from Invensense to STMicro for the accelerometer/gyroscope.
“The display is LG’s plastic OLED display and the touchscreen overlay module is a TPK Slim GG utilizing their ‘Force Touch’ technology,” he adds.
