According to an independent teardown of the Galaxy Z Fold 4, the bill of materials for the foldable phone is around $670. The Galaxy Z Fold 4 has a lower profit margin than the iPhone 14 Pro Max and another foldable phone developed by a Chinese OEM. Huawei, to be specific.
The cost of the Galaxy Z Fold 4 components is estimated to be around 38% of the sales price. In comparison, the Huawei Mate Xs has a part cost-to-retail price ratio of around 30%, indicating that Huawei has a higher profit margin on its foldable phone than Samsung. In other words, it pays less for parts than the price of its foldable phone at launch.
Meanwhile, the part cost-to-retail-price ratio for the Xiaomi Mi Mix Fold is around 40%. On the non-foldable side, rival Apple spends slightly more than $500 on iPhone 14 Pro Max components, with a cost-to-market price ratio of around 46%. These estimated part costs are based on a Nikkei teardown in collaboration with Tokyo teardown specialist Fomalhaut Techno Solutions.
Approximately 50% of Z Fold 4 parts are produced locally at a low cost.
According to the recent Galaxy Z Fold 4 teardown, roughly half of the parts used by the Samsung foldable phone are produced in South Korea — at least on a cost basis. Similarly, roughly half of the parts used by Huawei are manufactured in South Korea. Furthermore, approximately 36% of the parts used by the Xiaomi Mi Mix are supplied by the same country’s manufacturers.
It’s worth noting that the bill of materials for all of these OEMs, including Samsung, Apple, Huawei, and Xiaomi, does not include the costs of development and engineering, research and development, marketing, employee wages, and so on. It’s a rough estimate of the cost of vacuum parts.
In any case, the teardown puts Samsung’s part cost ratio into context, given that Huawei has a significantly higher profit margin even though the majority of its phones are sold in China rather than overseas. Xiaomi is comparable to Samsung, and Apple has the smallest profit margin on the iPhone 14 Pro Max, even though the latter is not a foldable phone.
