incredibly cheap although 7% more than the previous generation

The iPhone 15 Pro Max has already set a new ceiling in terms of costs. Apple has gone all out with titanium. And, apparently, the iPhone 16 Pro Max is not left out: it is much more expensive to produce than the previous model.

The American agency TD Cowen conducted a survey to determine the total costs and had a surprise: making an iPhone 16 Pro Max with 256 GB of storage, including parts, product assembly and packaging for further distribution in stores is 485 US dollars.

But the most curious thing is that the iPhone 15 Pro Max was even cheaper: $453. In other words, $32 less, or 7% cheaper.

The iPhone 16 Pro Max is more expensive to produce, but it’s still very affordable

The most expensive thing to produce, as usual, is the display and rear camera module. Both cost $80 each, which represents 16% of the total cost — ironically, on the iPhone 15 Pro Max, they made up 17% of the total.

However, as can be seen in the table above, the internal components of the iPhone 16 Pro Max slightly increase the total cost compared to the previous model. More screen (0.2 extra inches), more battery (going from 4,441 mAh to 4,685 mAh) and a series of production improvements that change the overall map. Memory triggers the price, for example, and RAM and SSD increase by five dollars each.

As the consultancy reports, this rise occurs in all models and the base iPhone 16 also increased, reaching $416, surpassing the psychological barrier of $400 – iPhone 15 materials reached $395 . So well, The base iPhone 16 now costs $21 more to produce. Although it also happens to be the best-selling model.

In any case, we are talking about the fact that each sale continues to be very profitable for Apple. US$485 is still a good deal. This terminal is currently sold for 1,469 dollars, so it would leave Apple with almost a thousand dollars of its own for each sale. Nonsense if we compare it with other Android phones. Of course, we would still have to deduct the proportional share of the thousands of salaries and recover the investment in patents, licenses and years of research. It is impossible for us to calculate this estimate, but it is clear that Apple knows how to do the calculations. Even with its camera, the most expensive component of all.