You cannot just factor component costs and deduce what the device costs to make. There are prior investments, especially at that kind of scale: Apple tends to outright buy the machines necessary for mass-producing advanced technologies (they completely swept the entire world market for new and used CNC machines for years after the first unibody MacBook Air was released), and how components and materials are sourced makes another crucial difference. Apple details their efforts in yearly reports.
And if you factor in research and development costs, that opens up another whole checkbook in the billions in cost.
I’m afraid the graphic doesn’t even come close to reality. As it is, it’s just fandom-infused cherry-picking, but the methods and incompleteness aren’t doing the argument a favour, ironically.
@spheric why do you think the posted gross margins (aka cost of goods sold) only factors component cost? It considers everything directly needed to sell a product! This includes your mentioned prior investments. Both fixed and variable. Things that wouldn't be included are marketing campaigns. This is mentioned in the graphic. How is looking at the cost of goods sold (COGS - seems like you need to look it up) and finding the margin not the best way to determine value! How can this be cherry picking? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!!
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And if you factor in research and development costs, that opens up another whole checkbook in the billions in cost.
I’m afraid the graphic doesn’t even come close to reality. As it is, it’s just fandom-infused cherry-picking, but the methods and incompleteness aren’t doing the argument a favour, ironically.