There was an article a while back (few months old maybe?) that said Apple makes anywhere form 49-70% profit on each individual iPhone.
The ridiculous thing is, the price stays the same for an entire year, give or take, until the next iPhone. So up until September 12th, the 4S was still $649 unlocked. By that point, that's probably hovering closer to that 70% profit range. I scanned through the thread, and someone said it costs Apple about $188 dollars to make the iPhone 4S? If true, that's an insane profit. I could have read wrong, however.
And to put it into more perspective, the iPhone 4 was $549 unlocked (two year old phone) and the 3GS was $379, I believe, unlocked (3 year old phone). <- Think about that.
The same will be true for whatever the iPhone 5 costs. It'll be the same price until the next one, no matter if (really: when) production costs go down.
Also, a note about resale value, because I know it'll inevitably be brought up... there's no question resale value is higher with iPhones, but the math really isn't that dramatic. Just some rough figures:
If you buy an unlocked iPhone for $649 + tax = about $730 or so?
Resell for what? Say $400 or so? You lose $300+ bucks.
If you buy an unlocked Galaxy SIII, which I think now is in the mid-$500 range + tax, say it's somewhere over $600+. Resale for (what are they going for?). Even if you resale for $200, you'd lose ~$300 bucks.
Ditto the Galaxy Nexus from Google. $350 unlocked + tax = $400+.
Even if you resell this for as low as $100 bucks, you'd lose ~$300.
So, is the resale value that big of a deal when the price of the device is so high to begin with? Not sure.