Consumers always want the best value for money in all the purchases that they make, no doubt about it. The thing about purchasing a smartphone on contract is this – you pay a whole lot less compared to an unlocked device, but the mobile carrier would make the money back on the smartphone through your 2-year contract, and hopefully, that you would spend plenty of time chalking up your talk minutes and data usage throughout the 24 month window period. Having said that, the recently unveiled Moto X from Motorola has been torn down, with the estimated cost of manufacturing for a single unit standing at slightly more than $200 a pop. Of course, Motorola has not stepped forward with any kind of BOM (Bill Of Materials) to date, so we will just have to make do with this ballpark figure.
This bit of information hails from IHS, where they mentioned, “Motorola is paying a premium for a made-in-America phone, but it’s also giving them the ability to do the customization work easily.” The manufacturing cost is said to cost around $12, while the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor will cost $28 a pop. Other chips from Qualcomm such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and cellular will burn another $43, with the other bits and pieces adding up eventually.