CUPERTINO, Calif. — Apple’s new iPad hit store shelves Friday. That means that along with the lines at the stores and the requisite applause of store employees cheering people who buy them, there were among the many iPad buyers people who just could not wait to get the gadget torn apart.
The analysts at the market research firm IHS iSuppli, considered by the investment community to be the most reliable of the organizations that conduct teardowns, were among that set.
On Friday, somewhere in Southern California, an iSuppli analyst stood in line at a store and promptly took an iPad to a lab, where it was torn into, initiating the interesting process of estimating what it all cost to build.
Here is what iSuppli’s team found: First off, there were not many changes from the last iPad, in terms of suppliers.
“It’s most of the same characters we saw last time around,” analyst Andrew Rassweiler said.
Wireless chip-makers Qualcomm and Broadcom both reappeared — Qualcomm supplying a baseband processor chip, Broadcom a Bluetooth and Wi-Fi chip, TriQuint Semiconductor suppling some additional wireless parts. STMicroelectronics once again retained its position supplying the gyroscope. Cirrus Logic supplied an audio codec chip.
The 16GB, Wi-Fi-only iPad that sells for $499 costs about $316 to make, or about 63 percent of the device’s retail price. On the upper end, the 4G-ready 64GB model that sells for $829 costs about $409 to make, or about 49 percent of the retail price.
The new cost figures represent an increase of between 21 percent and 25 percent, depending on the model, from the iPad 2, which iSuppli tore down last year.
So what did they find inside? An expensive Samsung display, for one thing. All those millions of pixels do not come cheap. Rassweiler estimates that the display, which cost $57 on the iPad 2, has grown in cost to $87 on the latest iPad.
The combined cost of cameras, including the front-facing and back camera, is pegged at $12.35, more than three times the cost of cameras found on the iPad 2, Rassweiler says. But it is essentially the same setup as that on the iPhone 4, he says.
As with other Apple devices, the main processor chip is an Apple-made A5X processor, one manufactured under contract by Samsung. The estimated cost of that chip is $23, up from $14 on the iPad 2.
Another part that is more expensive than on the last iPad, but also better for a variety of reasons, is the battery. This one is estimated to have cost Apple $32, up from $25 on the iPad 2. But it constitutes a significant upgrade, Rassweiler says, with 70 percent more capacity than before.
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