Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPad Teardown Reveals Build-Up Cost $188

Apple Inc.(NASDAQ:AAPL)’s most recent addition to the iPad lineup of tablets is the iPad mini that has hit the shelves of the stores last day. Among many people, who had stood in the queue around the world to purchase the devices, there were some who had taken the devices to their homes only to dunk them into water or to make TV comedy shows out of them. There were a few analysts at HIS, who could hardly wait to start disassembling the cute thing.

IHS was previously known as iSuppli and is widely popular for its ‘teardown’ analysis reports. It has just completed its teardown report on Apple’s latest iPad. The verdict that it has presented is that its base model is a Wi-Fi only 16GB iPad mini and sells for a starting price of $329. It takes $188 to build the device. The options for memory are 32 GB and 64 GB. They add only incremental cost and also a fair amount of profit, coming up to an extra $90 for the 32 GB and $162 for the 64 GB.

Apart from the expenses of materials, formally known as Bill of Materials, the teardown also revealed the identities of a number of key suppliers on the most recent device. The most visible component seems to be the 7.9-inch touch sensitive display.

AU Optronics and LG Display were found to have provided the display components. Parts associated with the display are priced at about $80, which is 43% of the total Bill of Materials. The screen uses a technology that is known as GF2 that lets the whole display to seem thinner than on the previous versions. An HIS analyst, Andrew Rassweiler said that the new technology is proving somewhat taxing to make. It increases the cost of the display. However, with glitches in the making process are fixed, the costs are supposed to come down.