The Pixel 9 Pro is much cheaper to make than the iPhone 16 Pro

A new report from Japan today claims to reveal the bill of materials (BOM) for both Google's Pixel 9 Pro and Apple's iPhone 16 Pro. The bill of materials is essentially an estimation of how much the parts that make up the smartphones cost - obviously these completely exclude R&D and marketing costs, it's important to keep in mind.

If this report is accurate (and that's not a given because this isn't publicly available information), then it looks like Google's Pixel 9 Pro is much cheaper to make (when we look at the parts' costs) than the iPhone 16 Pro. The Pixel's BOM adds up to $406, while the iPhone's is allegedly $568.

Google Pixel 9 Pro (left) vs iPhone 16 Pro (right) bill of materials

The Pixel 9 Pro's BOM is thus 11% less than it was for the Pixel 8 Pro last year, but this is a bad comparison since the Pixel 8 Pro's successor is the Pixel 9 Pro XL. The Pixel 9 Pro is simply smaller, which means it has a smaller screen and a smaller battery - both presumably cheaper than larger ones would be, so that's where the drop in BOM cost could be coming from.

On the other hand, the iPhone 16 Pro's BOM is 6% higher than its predecessor's was last year. The iPhone's chipset is estimated to cost $135, the display $110, and the camera components add up to $91. The Pixel's SoC is $80, the display is $75, and the camera components add up to $61.

For reference, note that both the Pixel 9 Pro and the iPhone 16 Pro start at the same price: $999.

Source (in Japanese) | Via 1 | Via 2

Reader comments

i literally praised Google for having better hardware. If pixel fans had a brain the world would've been a better place.

  • Anonymous

Awe the apple fany boy got his feelings. You shills think everyone gets their phones because of minute differences in hardware. People care about practical difference and not everyone wants to be locked into a caged ecosystem.

People like iPhones here. You likely live in the US, so you're used to seeing everyone use one. They're only 30% market share worldwide, or a little less