The Samsung Galaxy S8 is more expensive to manufacture than any other high-end smartphone that’s currently available on the market, not including the Galaxy S8 Plus, a teardown performed by British market research firm IHS Markit revealed. The 64GB variant of the 5.8-inch Galaxy S8 costs Samsung $301.60 to make, which is significantly higher compared to the company’s previous flagship models, the report states, adding that with the inclusion of basic manufacturing costs, the cheapest member of the Galaxy S8 lineup costs $307.50 to make. According to IHS Markit’s estimates, that makes the Galaxy S8 $36.29 more expensive to manufacture than the Galaxy S7 Edge, and $43.34 more costly than the Galaxy S7. The company has yet to conduct a teardown of the 6.2-inch Galaxy S8 Plus, though it’s implied that the larger device is even more expensive than its smaller sibling, and that’s not accounting for the fact that Samsung is currently also retailing a variant of the device sporting 6GB of RAM and 128GB of NAND flash memory in select Asian markets.
The company said that there are numerous factors driving up the manufacturing costs of the Galaxy S8, but most of them can be summarized by saying that the South Korean tech giant went out of its way to offer an innovative product that strives to push the boundaries of what people expect from a contemporary smartphone. Everything from its Infinity Display and support for gigabit-LTE speeds to Bluetooth 5.0 compatibility and a large amount of internal storage that’s twice the size of any other Android flagship’s base model contributes to the fact that Samsung is spending a lot of money on manufacturing the Galaxy S8, which also explains its relatively high price tag. For added context, the Galaxy S8 is more expensive to make than both the Google Pixel and the iPhone 7 and is also likely pricier to manufacture than the recently released LG G6.
Regardless of its high production costs, the Galaxy S8 is expected to become a massive commercial hit and possibly even the best-selling Android smartphone of the year. Regarding its larger sibling, IHS Markit is planning to conduct a teardown analysis of the Galaxy S8 Plus in the coming weeks, so more details on the manufacturing costs of that particular model should follow soon.