TECH NEWS – One component in Apple’s AR headset costs almost a third of the parts cost.

It’s only natural that the price of a gadget should include a profit margin. It’s no different with the Apple Vision Pro, but even the base 256GB model costs $3500. However, the production costs are not made up of pennies, as parts are not in short supply. If you take the cost of the parts alone, it’s over $1500! So the Cupertino-based company is making a lot of money on the sale of just one unit…

According to CNBC, Omdia put the total cost of the parts at an estimated $1,542. That doesn’t include research, development, packaging and marketing costs, not to mention Apple’s profit margin. However, one of the components is significantly more expensive than the others: Sony’s two 4K resolution micro-OLED displays cost $228 each, or $456, accounting for nearly a third of the parts bill.

It’s no wonder that Apple is reportedly negotiating with two Chinese display suppliers to reduce costs so that the next model (the cheaper version, or possibly the second-generation headset) can be produced more cheaply. If the cheaper model is indeed made by Apple, the headset rumored for 2025 would have a weaker display and be based on the iPhone rather than a Mac-based chipset. The M2 and R1 chipsets will probably also be omitted, as they don’t need such powerful hardware to deliver content to the two 4K micro-OLED panels.

But back to manufacturing costs: R&D and marketing don’t make up the vast majority of the remaining $2,000, so the U.S. company is actually making a significant amount of money from the sale of just one headset. The new Apple Vision Pro is due out in 2027 (not the cheaper one, but the second-generation model!), and by then it could be a big step towards the mainstream, although we’ve heard it could take four generations.

Source: WCCFTech, CNBC