Apple to cut iPhone 12 costs with new battery – Report
Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claims that Apple will use a simpler battery in its upcoming iPhone 12 and iPhone 12S smartphones to save on costs.
According to an Apple Insider report, Kuo believes Apple will reduce the number of rigid-flex board layers on its smartphones’ batteries and will shrink the area that contains its active cell components.
Kuo believes that this will result in the average unit price of these batteries being just over half of those used in the iPhone 11.
In the years to come, Kuo claims that Apple will no longer use rigid-flex boards at all, instead using a flexible architecture. This would reportedly reduce the cost of battery units by 30-40%.
A regulatory filing in July suggested that the upcoming iPhones will offer significantly lower battery capacities compared to the 2019 iPhone range’s batteries.
The cells are reportedly rated as 2,227mAh, 2,775mAh, and 2,815mAh, compared to the 3,110mAh and 3,190mAh ratings from last year’s iPhones.
Apple saving costs to support 5G
These cost-saving measures are in response to Apple supporting 5G on its new iPhones.
The company needs to offset the cost of integrating 5G into its devices, which Kuo said will cost either $80 or $130 per unit depending on whether the devices uses sub-6GHz or millimetre-wave 5G technologies.
However, Apple does not simply want to add on this cost to these iPhones’ prices and has therefore looked into measures such as the reduced battery quality to compensate for the additional cost of 5G technologies.
A previous report by Ming-Chi Kuo indicated that the iPhone 12 range will also not ship with a power adapter or EarPods.
Not only would this save on the cost of these iPhones directly; it would also allow Apple to use smaller packaging for its iPhones – meaning more phones could be transported per shipment.
Another bonus would be that more customers would likely purchase EarPods or AirPods separately – meaning that Apple would get increased revenue anyway.
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