T-Mobile G1's Build Price = $143.89

found an interesting article with the above title over at gizmodo this morning. figured id pass along the information for those that dont frequent the site.

T-mobile's G1 has been given the teardown treatment again by the guys at iSuppli, and their official estimate of its materials price is $143.89. The most costly part inside is the dual-ARM processor baseband at $28.49, followed by the display at $19.67 and the 3-megapixel cam at $12.13. Obviously this doesn't include external costs such as hardware and software development, packaging and the like, but it gives an interesting insight into the G1. And, even more interestingly, it's cheaper than it's competitor, the iPhone 3G: this runs in at $174.33.

for the rest of the article (including iSuppli's official statement), hit up the link:

http://gizmodo.com/5083191/t+mobile-g1s-build-price-is-just-14389-says-isuppli

Huh, interesting article, nice find.

Interesting..nice find

That is some cool info!!
+1

lol camera 12.. i think they could have put in 5 mp for 16 dollars and add a flash for 2 ...and a better bluetooth hehe

so they are still making their 25%...that's about right

lol camera 12.. i think they could have put in 5 mp for 16 dollars and add a flash for 2 ...and a better bluetooth hehe

for cameras that small, the pricing doesn't scale that well. 5mp costs substantially more and also uses more processing power...

so they are still making their 25%...that's about right

Who is making 25%?  That is simply the cost of materials.  Let's not forgot manufacturing costs, packaging, software costs, development costs.  I promise the total manufacturing of this device costs HTC a lot more then $145.  T-Mobile probably pays them about $300-$350 for each device would be my guess.

so they are still making their 25%...that's about right

Who is making 25%?  That is simply the cost of materials.  Let's not forgot manufacturing costs, packaging, software costs, development costs.  I promise the total manufacturing of this device costs HTC a lot more then $145.  T-Mobile probably pays them about $300-$350 for each device would be my guess.

I guess that seems about right! HTC really made some money this year. HTC G1, Touch Diamond, Touch Pro, Shadow 2 and many more...

so they are still making their 25%...that's about right

Who is making 25%?  That is simply the cost of materials.  Let's not forgot manufacturing costs, packaging, software costs, development costs.  I promise the total manufacturing of this device costs HTC a lot more then $145.  T-Mobile probably pays them about $300-$350 for each device would be my guess.

I guess that seems about right! HTC really made some money this year. HTC G1, Touch Diamond, Touch Pro, Shadow 2 and many more...

Yeah, I wonder how close they are to their stated goal of being a top 5 handset manufacturer in the world (not just smartphone but handset, competing with Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, etc.)  They definitely made some strides this year and have even cooler phones coming out next year (Touch HD, Wing II, Dash II, Shadow II, etc.)

And they wanna charge me TWICE that for a one year contract?

Me and the Big T have a love-hate relationship!

overhead costs are about 40%, and reasonable profit to HTC would be about 10-20%...$300 is too much

And they wanna charge me TWICE that for a one year contract?

Me and the Big T have a love-hate relationship!

I don't think you fully understood the post.  The $143 is simply the cost of the materials, that HTC paid for.  This does not in any way indicate the cost T-Mobile pays HTC for the unit.  I assure you that whether you have a 1 year or 2 year contract, T-Mobile is taking a loss on the device if you're fully qualified.

And they wanna charge me TWICE that for a one year contract?

Me and the Big T have a love-hate relationship!

I don't think you fully understood the post.  The $143 is simply the cost of the materials, that HTC paid for.  This does not in any way indicate the cost T-Mobile pays HTC for the unit.  I assure you that whether you have a 1 year or 2 year contract, T-Mobile is taking a loss on the device if you're fully qualified.

yes, until we pay our first bill for a virtually 100% marginal profit for each 1 more customer signed up (in ranges)

And they wanna charge me TWICE that for a one year contract?

Me and the Big T have a love-hate relationship!

I don't think you fully understood the post.  The $143 is simply the cost of the materials, that HTC paid for.  This does not in any way indicate the cost T-Mobile pays HTC for the unit.  I assure you that whether you have a 1 year or 2 year contract, T-Mobile is taking a loss on the device if you're fully qualified.

yes, until we pay our first bill for a virtually 100% marginal profit for each 1 more customer signed up (in ranges)

That really depends on which plan you have.  If you are a person that has a $40-$50 monthly plan and never go over or add any extra features, the profit is very small.  T-Mobile doesn't start making any profit until you hit the $40 plan, which is why that plan is required for most rebates.  This is one of the reasons they started requiring people to sign up for data plans to get the heavy subsidies on data devices.

so youre saying that for every one more customer that signs up, it costs t mo $40 a month? theres no way thats true. i understand tmo has to take into effect customer service, updates, repairs, etc., but theres no way it costs them $40 a month just to have 1 more customer

My guess this works very similar to the videogame industry. Companies break almost even or even lose money on hardware sales but they make the money back with the software/service.