iPhone 6 Plus versus iPhone 6 – $100 more to buy, $16 more to produce

The price disparity between Apple’s new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus is not representative of the extra costs incurred in its manufacture.

That’s according to a new IHS report, which claims that despite costing $100 more to buy in the US (and 80 more in the UK) it only costs Apple an additional $15.50 (9.76) to make.

Specifically, manufacturing costs are about $200.10 (122) for the 16GB iPhone 6 and $215.60 (131) for the iPhone 6 Plus. The handsets retail at 539 and 619 respectively.

(Which, incidentally, means that with profits of 417 per iPhone 6 sold and 488 per iPhone 6 Plus sold, Apple made somewhere in the region of 4.5bn in the first weekend of availability.)

Apple has always been adept at offering higher-end iPhone models with enhanced, desirable features – and then pricing those versions for maximum profitability,” IHS senior director of cost benchmarking services Andrew Rassweiler said.

In the past, the premium versions of iPhone offered higher memory configurations for additional profit. While Apple continues this memory strategy, the company is also taking a similar approach with the iPhone Plus, structuring its pricing to add bottom-line profit on models that have a very desirable feature: a large phablet-sized display.”

IHS adds that the numbers account only for raw hardware component and manufacturing costs and do not include other expenses such as software, licensing, royalties or R&D.