Dissecting the iPhone
With the iPhone on the streets, what else is left but to unravel its bodily secrets? iSuppli, which sells reports to customers detailing the processors, memory and materials used in each iPhone, revealed that Samsung Electronics, Infineon Technologies and Texas Instruments all delivered components and worked with Apple to create the device. Each iPhone sold will generate 50% profit on the cost of each phonefor Apple, but Apple is not the only victor. According to CNBC’s Julia Boorstin, Samsung, the biggest winner among tech suppliers, will generate $52 to $76 in revenue per phone, depending on which iPhone model -- the 4GB or larger-memory 8GB – sells the most. Another big winner is Infineon, a maker of Edge chips used in phones like Apple’s iPhone, which will generate over $15 in revenue per phone. Its competitor in Edge chip technology, Texas Instruments, will only generate $4 per phone. Apple is not contractually bound to any of these tech suppliers, Boorstin said, as it hopes to change its suppliers once it has calculated its need for the next-generation iPhone.