Here’s who much it reportedly costs to make the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra

When it comes to Android phones, it doesn't quite get as expensive as the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra. At a starting price of Rs 1,24,999, the Galaxy S23 Ultra is one of the most expensive non-folding smartphones in the market. But how much does it cost to make the Galaxy S23 Ultra?

According to Counterpoint's latest research, the Bill of Materials (BoM) for the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra is $469 (roughly Rs 38,650). The BoM is for the base 8GB/256GB variant of the S23 Ultra with sub-6GHz 5G. To recall, the BoM for the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra with the Snapdragon 888 was $533 (roughly Rs 43,900).

The Qualcomm Tax

Qualcomm is responsible for the highest share in the BoM of the Galaxy S23 Ultra, sitting at 34-percent, with most of it being for the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset. Moreover, Samsung also worked with the semiconductor manufacturer to introduce a custom version of the SD 8 Gen 2 chip.

Apart from the chip, Qualcomm also supplies the various components for wireless connectivity and designs the ultrasonic fingerprint reader as well as the power management ICs and audio electronics. This also explains why Samsung stuck with the Exynos for so long despite its inferior performance in recent years.

Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra BoM

In fact, Qualcomm's share in the BoM is even higher than Samsung's 33 percent share. Samsung, on the other hand, supplies the LTPO panel for the Galaxy S23 Ultra as well as the NAND flash and battery package. Additionally, two of the five cameras, including the new 200 MP HP2 sensor and 12 MP selfie camera are supplied by Samsung.

Sony supplies the two 10 MP IMX754 telephoto and periscope camera sensors and the 12 MP IMX564 ultrawide sensor. STM makes the laser AF module, the touch panel controller, and several other sensors, including the accelerometer and gyroscope. NXP engineered the phone's wired charging IC, while Convenient Power was responsible for the wireless charging IC.

It is worth noting that the BoM for the Galaxy S23 Ultra do not include research and development, marketing, customer support, shipping, and the warranty, among other things. Additionally, in regions like India, the base variant of the Galaxy S23 Ultra comes in with 12GB of RAM, while some versions of the device also feature mmWave connectivity.