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A new report out this morning by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman and Ian King takes a look into Apple's pricing strategy for the storage capacities on the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max. Specifically, Bloomberg says that the biggest upsell for the iPhone XS and XS Max is the new 512GB storage option, which will help Apple make $241 more per iPhone than the 64GB option.

iphone-xs-storage-tiers.jpg

512GB is the highest storage capacity that Apple has yet to release on an iPhone, and the company charges customers a lot more for NAND storage chips than it pays suppliers. IHS Markit analyst Wayne Lam explains that storage costs Apple about 25 cents per gigabyte, and the company charges customers about 78 cents per gigabyte. Because of this, Lam says that storage "is absolutely the most profitable iPhone feature."

In research compiled by Bloomberg, the 64GB iPhone XS cost Apple $23.68 for the NAND storage specifically, the 256GB cost $66.24, and the 512GB cost $132.48. In terms of revenue, the 512GB storage option is estimated to make Apple $241 more per iPhone than the 64GB tier, an increase from $107 between the highest and lowest storage tiers in last year's iPhone X.

According to data from InSpectrum Tech, the market price of NAND flash memory is half of what it was a year ago, but Apple's storage tiers for the iPhone have not reflected these savings.
"Storage is one of their levers to create more revenue and is absolutely the most profitable iPhone feature," says Wayne Lam, an analyst at researcher IHS Markit Ltd. Adding more isn't much work for Apple, because it just means swapping a chip, he adds, "whereas when you increase the screen size, you have to completely re-engineer the phone."

The 78¢-per-gig charge hasn't budged since last year. Of course, Apple uses contracts to lock in the price of such components as Nand flash, so it may not be benefiting yet from recent price declines. So far, though, storage costs customers more on an iPhone than on, say, a Samsung Note 9. Samsung Electronics Co. charges 65¢ a gig to move from the 128GB Note 9 phone to the 512GB model.
With more storage, users can save more photos, videos, documents, music, movies, podcasts, books, and more on their iPhones, without having to worry about deleting old items for more space. Of course, Apple also offers iCloud storage at $0.99/month for 50GB, $2.99/month for 200GB, and $9.99/month for 2TB. This means that if a 512GB iPhone XS or XS Max user wants to back up most of the content on their device, they will need to opt for the $9.99/month option.

In terms of the prices for these new iPhones, which begin at $750 for the not-yet-released iPhone XR and increase to $1,449 for the 512GB iPhone XS Max, Apple CEO Tim Cook has said that the company is aiming to "serve everyone." In an interview with Nikkei, he explained that "if you provide a lot of innovation and a lot of value, there is a segment of people who are willing to pay for it," referring to the steeper prices of this year's iPhone XS and XS Max.

Article Link: iPhone Storage is 'Absolutely the Most Profitable iPhone Feature' says Analyst
 

DevNull0

macrumors 68030
Jan 6, 2015
2,710
5,411
Well this means we can give up on ever getting an SD slot.

It truly amazes me there are so many people here who will brag about how great Apple is *because of* their high profits, when the reality is other companies simply aren't as eager to gimp their products in pursuit of the short term bottom line.

Timmy's Apple simply can't comprehend what came so naturally to Jobs, that long term customer loyalty trumps short term price gouging. Apple truly is the new Microsoft and it's only a matter of time before someone comes along and disrupts them.
 

nottooshabby

macrumors 6502
Jul 12, 2008
416
90
They should start at 128GB, but there’s a ton of profit in charging an extra $100 for the 256GB model.

64GB in a $1000 device is embarrassing.

It's an extra $150 for the 256GB model. The $700 off deals were looking tempting till I realized I have more than 64GB in use on my 128GB iPhone 7, so moving up to 256GB would add $150x2 to the price.
 
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D.T.

macrumors G4
Sep 15, 2011
11,050
12,467
Vilano Beach, FL
I know there will be decries against the evil corporate entity of Apple, but at the end of the day, if I choose to spend my money with them, and get the results I desire - i.e., a device with a terrific ownership experience, solid support, where I'm able to conduct business remotely, capture life with my beautiful family, get educated, be entertained, enjoy communicating, <insert_various_smartphone_features> - I don't care about their profit margin.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 

thisisnotmyname

macrumors 68020
Oct 22, 2014
2,439
5,251
known but velocity indeterminate
IHS Markit analyst Wayne Lam explains that storage costs Apple about 25 cents per gigabyte, and the company charges customers about 78 cents per gigabyte. Because of this, Lam says that storage "is absolutely the most profitable iPhone feature."​

In research compiled by Bloomberg, the 64GB iPhone XS cost Apple $23.68 for the NAND storage specifically, the 256GB cost $66.24, and the 512GB cost $132.48. In terms of revenue, the 512GB storage option is estimated to make Apple $134 more per iPhone than the 64GB tier, an increase from $107 for the 2017 models.

It seems like there's a math error here.
 

69Mustang

macrumors 604
Jan 7, 2014
7,895
15,045
In between a rock and a hard place
Apple is the only company using nvme based storage on a mobile phone.

It is going to be more expensive then everyone else using ufs.

Not really surprising news.
No this isn't surprising news. But not for the reason you're alluding to here. The type of storage Apple uses has nothing to do with the topic. This story is about the profit increase on storage relative to last year. $134 vs $107. It compares apples to apples... or Apple to Apple.:D
 

G5isAlive

Contributor
Aug 28, 2003
2,844
4,889
Well this means we can give up on ever getting an SD slot.

It truly amazes me there are so many people here who will brag about how great Apple is *because of* their high profits, when the reality is other companies simply aren't as eager to gimp their products in pursuit of the short term bottom line.

Timmy's Apple simply can't comprehend what came so naturally to Jobs, that long term customer loyalty trumps short term price gouging. Apple truly is the new Microsoft and it's only a matter of time before someone comes along and disrupts them.

So many replies. An SD slot was NEVER in the future for iPhones. Wasn't in the past when there were less concerns about 'water proofing' why would anyone think it would be in the future?

As for Saint Steve, many forget just how expensive the original 128 K Mac was and virtually every one of his Macs that followed... or the outcry of how expensive the original iPod was, or heck the iPhone even. No... Saint Steve's motto was 'build it and they will pay." Tim is simply following in the tradition, though arguably the products are not as revolutionary. People don't know Microsoft if they think Apple is the new Microsoft. Remember the Zoom?
 

DevNull0

macrumors 68030
Jan 6, 2015
2,710
5,411
That includes the iCloud.

I'd actually be willing to pay for iCloud of Apple didn't gimp that into useless crap as well. For one thing, why is there no way to prevent it from using certain connections to sync? At job sites, my only internet source is my iPhone which gets 5 gig/month of data and overage fees are $20/gig. If some major sync happens on that connection it could cost $500 for a minor sync in a few minutes.

And also, why can I only use it to back up areas of my macbook, and allow it to choose to auto-delete files when I exceed the capacity of my macbook? That's completely useless. If I could have a cloud folder accessible on all my devices that simply lived in the cloud and didn't auto-delete local copies of anything, that would be fantastic.
 

dalidrama

macrumors newbie
Jun 16, 2010
6
34
It's the hardware version of video game DLC. Want an iPhone for only $1,000? Oh right, it comes with only 64GB and youll need to spend more money to get that minimum storage you need. Same with their desktops. Want a computer for cheap? Oh right, it comes with 8GB ram. Oh, and you can't insert upgrades by yourself anymore and need to pay us an additional $400 to get it up to snuff.
 

Blackstick

macrumors 65816
Aug 11, 2014
1,344
6,383
OH
Since iCloud handles my photos/video with optimize storage, the 64GB iPhone X has been plenty of storage for my needs. If I took a lot of 4K video or wanted 50 high-end games at a time, I might feel differently.
 

DevNull0

macrumors 68030
Jan 6, 2015
2,710
5,411
As for Saint Steve, many forget just how expensive the original 128 K Mac was and virtually every one of his Macs that followed... or the outcry of how expensive the original iPod was, or heck the iPhone even. No... Saint Steve's motto was 'build it and they will pay." Tim is simply following in the tradition, though arguably the products are not as revolutionary. People don't know Microsoft if they think Apple is the new Microsoft. Remember the Zoom?

I was actually around to buy and use computers when the original Mac came out. Compared to the rest of the market at the time, the price was really not that out of line even compared to non-Apple solutions. People don't get just how expensive computers used to be. My first Hard Drive controller was $600, and it was a full length card completely covered with chips. The 20 megabyte RLL hard drive I attached to it was $900. So what exactly to you mean by many forget how expensive it was, I remember those days well.

And actually I hated the the clunky GUI of the mac so much that after my Apple IIe, my next computer was a PC compatible. I didn't buy my first Mac until a g3 wallstreet around 1999. But the Apple tax was never really more than about 30% compared to a comparable non-Apple computer.

Now for an nice 15" laptop with 16 gig of ram and decent storage, the Apple tax is around 400%.
 
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