Samsung’s Galaxy S8 Costs Much More to Build Than the iPhone 7

While Samsung’s swanky new Galaxy S8 flagship may be gorgeous and nearly indestructible (except when smashed repeatedly with a hammer) the device also happens to cost a rather hefty amount of money to manufacture, per unit, according to statistics gathered and put forth by IHS Markit analysts.

Whereas Apple’s 4.7-inch, aluminum unibody and Touch ID-equipped iPhone 7 costs around $224.80 per unit to manufacture, Samsung’s 5.8-inch AMOLED-equipped Galaxy S8’s Bill of Materials (BOM) costs come out to about $301.60, just for components — while an extra $5.90 in manufacturing costs brings the total to $307.50 per unit.

To be fair, the price disparity is clearly reflected not only in the more advanced slate of materials used to manufacture the Galaxy S8, but also in the overall price of Sammy’s S8 in comparison to Apple’s iPhone. For example, while a standard 32 GB-equipped iPhone 7 starts out at $649 retail, a standard, 64 GB-equipped Galaxy S8 retails for around $720 before any carrier subsidies.

The Galaxy S8 also boasts a myriad of more advanced, and thus more expensive, components over the iPhone 7. For instance, the most expensive component going into the Galaxy S8, according to IHS Markit’s analysis, is the handset’s curved, edge-to-edge 5.8-inch AMOLED infinity display, which in itself costs $85 apiece. The second-most expensive component, after the display, is Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 835 ‘Kyro’ CPU at $45 apiece, followed by the included 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB SSD storage chips for $41.50, and finally, its super-strong aluminum chassis which clocks in at around $22.50.

“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 senior director of cost benchmarking services for IHS Markit, Andrew Rassweiler, who added that “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.”

In comparison to last year’s flagship Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge, Samsung’s S8 costs approximately $43.43 and $36.29 more to manufacture, respectively.

Meanwhile, IHS analysts have yet to teardown and calculate the BOM costs for Samsung’s slightly larger Galaxy S8+ — however, one can only reason that device will be proportionately more costly to manufacture, even despite the variable differences between the two devices being their display, chassis, and battery size.