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 $134 more per iPhone than the 64GB option.
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 $134 more per iPhone than the 64GB tier, an increase from $107 for the 2017 models.
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.
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