Are 'Applenomics' Not Fair? iPhone 6S Plus Costs 48% More To Make Than SE, But Is Priced 88% Higher

iPhone SE from Apple Inc.

is being marketed as the low-cost iPhone targeting emerging markets as it is a slimmed down version of IPhone 6S and comes at a price of $399. Let's see whether the $399 price is a better bargain for consumers. According to IHS, an entry-level 16GB iPhone SE costs about $160 to build. Notably, iPhone SE features the same A9 chip that powers iPhone 6S and also has the 12MP camera as iPhone 6S, which costs $649. "The iPhone SE represents an amalgamation of three iPhone generations -- iPhone 5s, iPhone 6 and iPhone 6s -- rolled into something altogether new," Andrew Rassweiler, senior director of cost benchmarking services at IHS, said in a statement. http://press.ihs.com/press-release/technology/iphone-se-three-iphone-generations-rolled-one-ihs-teardown-reveals "Despite its physical resemblance to the iPhone 5s, the resulting product is far superior. In fact, the only significant tradeoffs a consumer would make with the iPhone SE against the iPhone 6s is smaller size and lower screen resolution," Rassweiler noted. A data from HIS shows that Apple's total cost to manufacture the iPhone 6S Plus is $236, an increase of 48 percent from the manufacturing cost of 5E. The iPhone 6S Plus costs $749. From the economics viewpoint, an iPhone 6S Plus costs $350 more than 5E and the math is that a customer pays 88 percent premium for a product that is only 48 percent more expensive to build.