My beloved iPhone

With tears in my eyes, I buried my iPhone. My LTR with my black (I am not racist, its just the color of my iPhone) iPhone ended 20 days before our scheduled divorce. A day spent in mourning, am ready to get my iPhone4. Yeah baby.. thats what Austin Powers will say. I think I am feeling the same way.

Getting back to getting my new iPhone, I am wondering when I can physically claim it to be mine. The apple store pre-orders are still 2 weeks into the future. Well atleast they do not charge me for placing a pre-order. On the other hand, AT&T is providing fulfillment orders only if you pay em. Guess what, an AT&T store rep gave me a full hour of pre-order 101 training and I was dumb enough to listen to it. Anyways, 2 more weeks of my bang-boom relationship with my go-phone until I get my iPhone.

Midst all this turmoil, I was trying to decipher who is paying for my iPhone after all. The total bill of materials on a $600 iPhone — the supplies that go into final assembly — is $187.51, according to iSuppli. Source: NY Times. Which leaves me to believe that Apple actually loses money on iPhone.

Assuming that cost of marketing and in-store costs and other fulfillment costs amount to $20 per iPhone, Apple stands to lose $7 on each iPhone unless AT&T pays the remaining price.

Lets say Apple negotiated $400 with AT&T (sounds reasonable eh.. )

Customer LTV = [ 40 (voice plan) + 30 (data plan) ] x 24 months

of which Apple keeps 30% (we know what a deal maker Mr Jobs is)

So Apple net gain seems to be close to 700 bucks

For poor AT&T, its hard to say they make $$ on data. Data mongers like us playing pandora all day long hardly leave any profits. Lets say on voice, AT&T makes 70% margin, which brings us to believe that over 2 years AT&T makes @$16 a month (subtracting Apple Share) = close to 400 bucks

Subtract that 200 concession, we have 200 bucks for AT&T. Not bad eh..

Is that a good ARPU, is that sustainable. Hmm, I dont know. All I know, that I want my iPhone and yeah, its orgasmic.

Sent from my iPad