Samsung recently launched the Galaxy S8 smartphone in India, starting at Rs 57,900. This is however, not the actual cost of the device. Naturally, all smartphone manufacturers sell their products at higher than actual prices to generate maximum profit. Moreover, the retail price besides comprising of the manufacturing expenses, is also influenced by other factors such as marketing costs and taxes.
The question is: How much profit is Samsung earning on each of the Galaxy S8 smartphones? IHS Markit seems to have the answer.
According to a new report published by IHS Markit, the total bill of materials for the 64GB storage variant is approximately $301.60 (around Rs 19,500). The manufacturing cost is around $5.9 (around Rs 381). Therefore, the final amount sums up to be around $307.50 (around Rs 19,900).
“The new Samsung Galaxy S8 equipped with 64 gigabytes (GB) of NAND flash memory carries a bill of materials (BOM) cost that comes out to US$301.60, much higher than for previous versions of the company’s smartphones, according to a preliminary estimate from IHS Markit,” the report read.
In that sense, since the Galaxy S8’s cheapest version is priced at around Rs 46,500; Samsung is earning roughly Rs 26,700 more than what it took the South Korean tech giant to manufacture.
“The higher total BOM costs for the Galaxy S8 seem to be part of a trend that reflects something of an arms race in features among Apple, Samsung and other phone manufacturers, as they all try to add new and distinguishing hardware features,” said Andrew Rassweiler, senior director of cost benchmarking services for IHS Markit. “While there are new non-hardware features in the Galaxy S8, such as a virtual assistant called Bixby, from a teardown perspective the hardware in the Galaxy S8 and that of the forthcoming new iPhone is expected to be very similar,” he added.
Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S8/S8+ have been grabbing the world’s attention since they were unveiled. The all-glass body with Samsung’s Infinity Display makes for a style statement in your hands and packs in a lot of innovative features. That makes it very desirable and we are already beginning to witness that desirability.
As per reports, all the 1,50,000 Galaxy S8+ 128GB models have been sold out and there is none available for pre-order right now. Moreover, people who will be pre-ordering the Galaxy S8/S8+ will be getting deliveries probably by the end of May.
The increased demand is probably accelerated by the fact that Samsung is offering a lot of benefits with Galaxy S8/S8+ if consumers are pre-ordering the phone. Benefits are also offered by various Samsung’s partners and associated carriers as well, thus luring customers for a super sweet deal. If you are pre-ordering the phone in South Korea, Samsung will bundle the Samsung Dex docking station, a Bluetooth speaker and a year’s warranty for repairs. The Samsung Dex dock can make your Galaxy S8/S8+ into a makeshift computer with the aids of a mouse, a keyboard and a monitor. The Dex enhances the phone’s productivity, thus making it a smaller replacement for a desktop computer.
To recall, the Samsung Galaxy S8 features a 1.9GHz octa-core Samsung Exynos 8895 processor paired with 4GB of RAM. There’s 64/128GB storage on board along with 256GB expandable microSD card slot. A 12MP f1.7 dual pixel camera does the rear camera’s duty while an 8MP f1.7 auto-focus camera is there to work as the front camera. The standard S8 has a 5.8-inch 1440p sAMOLED “Infinity Display” while the S8+ has to do with a 6.2-inch 1440p version of the same. There’s Bixby on board along with Google’s Assistant to assist you in your daily life.
Samsung has reportedly sold 620,000 units of the S8 and the S8+ models in South Korea so far.
It seems as if people are unaffected by last year’s Note 7’s fiasco and are willing to go for Samsung’s flagship, regardless of other noteworthy competitors.
