Big Profits for Apple iPhone, Slim Pickings for eBayers

Analysts at iSuppli, a market research firm, have ripped apart Apple’s iPhone and discovered that Apple is probably making more than 50 percent on each phone. According to Andrew Rassweiler, principal analyst for iSuppli, the $599 retail-priced 8GB phone has a component cost of $265.83. Component makers like Infineon and Samsung are also raking in the bucks as the iPhones fly off the store shelves.

TG Daily - Big profits for Apple iPhone – iSuppli

Apple boss Steve Jobs has said the iPhone will become Apple’s third main business after the iPod music player and Mac computer, which generate $10bn in annual sales each. Apple said it hoped to sell 10 million iPhones by 2008 and grab a 1% share of the mobile phone market.

According to Apple’s website, there is already a two to four week waiting list to order the phone online. The quad-band phone has a 3.5in (9cm) touch screen, wi-fi, no keyboard, a camera and a web browser on board.

BBC - iPhone creates stir on US launch

The Iphone has the pizazz, the technology and the cool to single handedly kickstart the mobile web revolution. Importantly, for Apple’s beancounters at least, that revolution will be on Apple’s terms. On its platform, its browser, its end-to-end service.

If everyone you knew had an Iphone, the world of the web and the desktop computer would be turned upside down. And unless I’m way off base with this one, almost everyone you know is going to have one soon enough. Give it five years, then check back in with me, and we’ll see where we are.

the Inquirer - What if everyone had the same cellphone?

If you were hoping to make big bucks by reselling an iPhone on eBay, it doesn’t look like it was really worth the effort.

Corey Spring has posted an analysis of iPhone listings on eBay over the weekend (spotted on Daring Fireball), and he has concluded that the average listing generated $54.43 in profit. That’s not a very good return for those who waited in line for hours, or even days, in hope of flipping an iPhone for big bucks. The median return was even worse, at $34.16, which means that half of iPhone auctioneers made less than that amount.

CNET News - Get-rich-quick iPhone schemes not paying off