iSuppli says T-Mobile G1 costs $144 to make, nothing to love
By Chris Ziegler 
posted Nov 12th 2008 1:51PM
posted Nov 12th 2008 1:51PM
Teardown specialist iSuppli is at it again, digging through the G1's guts this time around in an effort to wrap its inquisitive brain around the inaugural Android handset's bill of materials. The result? $144, which naturally doesn't reflect HTC's R&D -- an additional expense that might have been unusually low for the G1 considering HTC's overwhelming expertise in manufacturing all things mobile. For the record, this is about $30 less than iSuppli's July estimate for the 8GB iPhone 3G, though the comparison isn't terribly fair considering that the G1 has a mere pittance of internal storage by comparison. There's no telling what T-Mobile pays HTC for each and every G1 it sells, but we pay $179 (or less) on contract -- so it seems HTC is making itself a nice little profit right out of the gate and customers aren't footing much of the bill. At least, not until they've gone a few months into their two-year agreements.
Your "or less" comment is wrong. The G1 is now at Wal-Mart... for $179.99:
http://phandroid.com/2008/11/11/g1-finally-hits-wal-mart/
It may cost $144 for the materials. What about the money spend on develop the hardware and software? The cost on labor, packaging, etc? There are way more than just the cost of the materials. Wake up people.
http://www.oswid.com/images/Android.png