Foxconn to concentrate more n cars instead of iPhones

[Godlygamer23]

9 hours ago, Distinctly Average said:

Was it a Foxconn branded one? I remember seeing the brand on the box of many motherboards years ago. It must be around AM3/Socket 1366 era that they stopped shipping own brand boxed stuff.

Yup. 

This particular one is using the LGA775 socket. Currently has a Q6600 installed. 

Edited June 18, 2023 by Godlygamer23
Text format changes.

[Dracarris]

2 hours ago, suicidalfranco said:

BS, iPhone prices have been rising consistently

Aaah good job at ignoring my source which clearly shows that the 12,13 and 14 regular and Pro models have had the exact same price at introduction and even became cheaper when adjusting for inflation. Keep on sailing on your Apple hate boat.

 

Lets play ball for a minute and look at your chart: iphone 8 vs 11 vs 12 mini: 839, exact same price. iphone X vs XS vs 12 Pro: Exact same price, no wait, the 12 Pro has double the storage for the same price.

iphone 7 vs 8: 40 Euro price increase with double the storage.

 

There were some big jumps around 2014/2015, ever since then the "standard" iphones costs around 800$ or respecively less if adjusting for inflation. The SE 2020 costs the same as the 2008 iphone, so there's an entry-level option for you if that's your kind of thing.

 

Not even your own sources suit your narrative. You take a brief look at it, see: number go higher when going down and call BS at people that have presented sources.

2 hours ago, leadeater said:

Also before anything like this starts price per GB of storage and memory has been going down over those years so that's not a reason for price increases due to offering more of either.

Which is not at all what are major cost drivers for the BoM cost of handsets. It's the main SoC and the (now 5G) modem, prices for both have gone up significantly due to smaller process nodes and increased complexity. These two parts alone account for around 100$ in BoM cost in modern iphones (techinsights has a breakdown). These are followed by display and camera modules and only then comes Flash at around 20$.

 

Also, see the example above. The 12 Pro has the same price as the X and XS with double the storage capacity.

[leadeater]

21 minutes ago, Dracarris said:

Which is not at all what are major cost drivers for the BoM cost of handsets.

Of course not but it's so far never stopped anyone from throwing that in saying X generation iPhone base spec has double xyz to justify it. I mean cost over time has to go up unless we're having negative inflation but it's also not like pricing for most things have followed near inflation over the last 5 years or so.

 

21 minutes ago, Dracarris said:

It's the main SoC and the (now 5G) modem, prices for both have gone up significantly due to smaller process nodes and increased complexity. These two parts alone account for around 100$ in BoM cost in modern iphones (techinsights has a breakdown).

Getting a real and accurate cost of SoC's is damn hard, I doubt  $100 is all that accurate. It's also not as simple as attributing a cost to it like that either.

 

If you only go by TSMC wafer cost and yield per wafer you get one cost however that doesn't take in to account design cost nor Apple's partnership with TSMC towards node development. While Apple doesn't directly give TSMC for this they sign a very different style of supply contract with full commitment from day 1 so it requires high investment on TSMC side but it overall lowers the cost for both by going in day 1 at full production line capacity and full delivery allotments, no ramp up, just 100% from the start.

 

So industry costing is significantly different compared to less guarded figures you get, Apple SoCs do not cost as much comparative to others. Basically Apple gets the best price day one while others cost over time goes down, relatively speaking.

[Dracarris]

3 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Getting a real and accurate cost of SoC's is damn hard, I doubt  $100 is all that accurate.

That's why you rely on techinsight as they have all kinds of reliable sources for these things. Their main bussiness is to sell these info at hefty costs, depending on who you are.

It's around 50$ for the SoC, rest for the by now super complex 5G modem which does not result from a TSMC partnership but is bought "off the shelf", sort of.

3 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Of course not but it's so far never stopped anyone from throwing that in saying X generation iPhone base spec has double xyz to justify it. I mean cost over time has to go up unless we're having negative inflation but it's also not like pricing for most things have followed near inflation over the last 5 years or so.

A better way of argumenting IMHO is that current phones are vastly more capable than the original iphone. Sure, technology evolves but complexity and functionality of phones has exploded.

You can also look at it this way: You can get an iphone SE in 2020 for the same price as the original iphone in 2008 (which of course is less actual money due to 12 years of inflation in between).

[leadeater]

1 minute ago, Dracarris said:

That's why you rely on techinsight as they have all kinds of reliable sources for these things. Their main bussiness is to sell these info at hefty costs, depending on who you are.

It's around 50$ for the SoC, rest for the by now super complex 5G modem which does not result from a TSMC partnership but is bought "off the shelf", sort of.

I think you need to read my post properly because my comment is about techinsight, they are going to be wrong, it's just how wrong.

[Dracarris]

4 minutes ago, leadeater said:

I think you need to read my post properly because my comment is about techinsight, they are going to be wrong, it's just how wrong.

Yeah of course they aren't going to be dead-on, but depending on the quality of their sources they'll be close. Even if they're 50% off for the SoC, they can still be accurate for the remaining major cost drivers, which, together with the SoC, add to around 250$ of BoM cost.

 

Also

9 minutes ago, leadeater said:

doesn't take in to account design cost

design cost or RnD is never part of BoM cost for producing a handheld. Apple pays around 500$ per successfully produced high-end handset. RnD, cloud operating costs and the like come on top of that.

[leadeater]

9 minutes ago, Dracarris said:

Yeah of course they aren't going to be dead-on, but depending on the quality of their sources they'll be close. Even if they're 50% off for the SoC, they can still be accurate for the remaining major cost drivers, which, together with the SoC, add to around 250$ of BoM cost.

That still doesn't really cover the design cost I mentioned though, BoM is basically worthless unless you want to have a whine about getting ripped off. Nobody is going to sell a product at BoM +like 20% because they'd never actually make money. Product design isn't free, chip design isn't free etc etc

 

Apple spends ~$26b/year on R&D. Lets use the dumbest most incorrect number possible, they sell 225m iPhones per year. $115 needs to be added on to the iPhone cost. Obviously this is super dumb and wrong but you get the picture, BoM is dumb.

[Dracarris]

4 minutes ago, leadeater said:

BoM is basically worthless unless you want to have a whine about getting ripped off

Well but BoM was the topic at discussion here, so I guess ?

And yeah it is bcs of people whining about getting ripped of, claiming producing an iphone costs Apple 30 or 50$ which is complete and utter BS.

[StDragon]

Will be real interesting where this goes. But from what I've been reading lately, the industry will be moving away from neodymium (rare earth materials) along with adopting sodium-ion batteries. Basically, it will be sacrificing top-end performance for better reliability and a substantially reduced cost. This should make EVs more affordable to the mass-market; in which case Foxconn will be really busy.

[Distinctly Average]

4 hours ago, StDragon said:

Will be real interesting where this goes. But from what I've been reading lately, the industry will be moving away from neodymium (rare earth materials) along with adopting sodium-ion batteries. Basically, it will be sacrificing top-end performance for better reliability and a substantially reduced cost. This should make EVs more affordable to the mass-market; in which case Foxconn will be really busy.

Already in China they have many very affordable EVs. The change there has been astonishing. Most of the big cities have replaced all their busses and taxis with full EV versions and have built the infrastructure to support that. Many cities you can only get a number plate if you are either extremely rich, or buy an EV. So the shift to EV has been very rapid. Again, the infrastructure has been implemented to support it. There are over 300 EV brands in China but the government have pledged to reduce that substantially for various reasons. In Europe an the UK we are now seeing 7+ Chinese brands on the road often at very competitive prices and excellent quality. A few legacy brands like BMW and new ones like Tesla have EVs built in China for the world market. BYD supply most of the electric busses we see in this part of the world too,. The market is massive.
 

Given all that, Foxconn seem to be making a very good move.

[Donut417]

5 hours ago, StDragon said:

it will be sacrificing top-end performance for better reliability and a substantially reduced cost. This should make EVs more affordable to the mass-market

That will help. But we also need to build out the infrastructure to support them. That in my opinion is going to be the biggest challenge. 

[Distinctly Average]

33 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

That will help. But we also need to build out the infrastructure to support them. That in my opinion is going to be the biggest challenge. 

I agree. I currently drive an EV here in the UK. Most of the time I can happily charge at home. Long journeys the only reliable chargers are Tesla. Others are either very over priced, require a plethora of RFID cards, are dog slow or just don’t work with the latter being more usual. It seems the same in many European countries. On a recent trip to Ireland I struck lucky but had to help another driver who despite having spoken to the people who ran the charger got the wrong advice. So even the people who run the things don’t know how to use them.

 

I am sure it will get better, but at the moment the system is broken

[Donut417]

1 minute ago, Distinctly Average said:

I am sure it will get better, but at the moment the system is broken

The problem is I live in the US and a whole lot of our systems are broken. Thats why it's going to be a challenge. Shit putting Armstrong and Aldrin on the moon was probably easier.  

[leadeater]

6 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

The problem is I live in the US and a whole lot of our systems are broken. Thats why it's going to be a challenge. Shit putting Armstrong and Aldrin on the moon was probably easier.  

Doing some extraordinarily hard once probably is easier than doing something difficult 1,000,000 times.

[Donut417]

2 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Doing some extraordinarily hard once probably is easier than doing something difficult 1,000,000 times.

Either way, Until the infrastructure is upgraded and built, many will hold on to their dinosaur burning cars. 

[StDragon]

1 hour ago, Donut417 said:

Either way, Until the infrastructure is upgraded and built, many will hold on to their dinosaur burning cars. 

Correct. California and Texas alone can hardly hold onto grid stability during extreme heat or cold weather (heating or air-conditioning demand). And effectively were supposed to replace the energy of hydrocarbons (have you seen the size and flow of the pipelines?) with grid power??!

 

Not going to happen until we have more generative capacity and the grid upgraded to handle more current consumption. It will get there, but it's not going to happen as quickly as most think.