Whenever a new smartphone or tablet is launched many sites do a tear down of that device and with that they analyse the device and its parts and estimate its cost , and this most sites do this just of iOS devices as these devices are much more popular.And now as iPhone 4S has been launched and started to ship IHS iSuppli's has did tear down of iPhone 4S and they has shared their analysis of the device.
16GB version of iPhone 4S about $500 and according to iSupplie's report the total hardware cost all the part in iPhone 4S is $188 only which is same as of the cost of iPhone 4 GSM version.Well to be honest hardware cost is not the only thing which is to be considered in the cost of iPhone but still with this cost of hardware even with all the other expenses overall Apple gets a good profit from iPhone.
In the case of the iPhone 4S, [IHS iSuppli analyst Andrew] Rassweiler estimates that the BOM cost ranges from $188 for the 16 gigabyte version of the iPhone 4S to $207 for the 32GB version and $245 for the 64GB version. Apple and its carrier partners sell the phones for $199, $299 and $399 respectively, typically with a two-year contract for wireless service that carriers use to subsidize the cost they pay Apple.
Apart from this iSuppli has also noticed some new stuff in iPhone 4S which is not in iPhone 4S.Like it has noice cancellation chip some and couple of other little stuff which makes it different from iPhone 4.