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HP TouchPad Costs an Estimated $318 to Make

By: , 7/6/2011 3:19 pm | 44 comments

You’ll remember we recently ran a story that the TouchPad was dissected right down to its naked circuit boards. Well, now iSuppli is reporting their cost estimates on building the HP TouchPad… $318 on average. More specifically, $328.15 for the 32GB model and $306.15 for the 16GB model.

The lion’s share of the costs were for display (by a mile), memory, and battery – in that order. Labor was estimated at $10 per tablet. Have a look at iSuppli’s page for more info.

[Source: iSuppli via: Gizmodo]

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About Dan Ramirez

Dan is a senior editor at webOSroundup. He is a physician in South Texas with an unbridled passion for webOS. He is very active on Twitter (@vara411) and enjoys engaging the webOS community.
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  • Matt_99_hey

    no wonder they are pushing the 32GB left and right, they are making a killing in profit compared to the 16GB. Way to go HP! 

    • Dude

      Yep. Hey HP, thanks for making things right!

    • http://www.facebook.com/nyallj Nyall Jodhan

      “*This cost assessment is preliminary in nature, and accounts only for hardware costs. It does not take into consideration other expenses such as software, licensing, and royalties or other ‘soft’ costs.”
      And $10 for labour per tablet? Seems a bit low to me, don’t you think?

      • Anonymous

        No, sadly that’s right… And that’s how much it COSTS, not how much the people producing it actually get (that would a fraction of those $ 10)

    • http://www.facebook.com/nyallj Nyall Jodhan

      “*This cost assessment is preliminary in nature, and accounts only for hardware costs. It does not take into consideration other expenses such as software, licensing, and royalties or other ‘soft’ costs.”
      And $10 for labour per tablet? Seems a bit low to me, don’t you think?

    • http://www.facebook.com/nyallj Nyall Jodhan

      “*This cost assessment is preliminary in nature, and accounts only for hardware costs. It does not take into consideration other expenses such as software, licensing, and royalties or other ‘soft’ costs.”
      And $10 for labour per tablet? Seems a bit low to me, don’t you think?

    • http://www.facebook.com/nyallj Nyall Jodhan

      “*This cost assessment is preliminary in nature, and accounts only for hardware costs. It does not take into consideration other expenses such as software, licensing, and royalties or other ‘soft’ costs.”
      And $10 for labour per tablet? Seems a bit low to me, don’t you think?

    • http://www.facebook.com/nyallj Nyall Jodhan

      “*This cost assessment is preliminary in nature, and accounts only for hardware costs. It does not take into consideration other expenses such as software, licensing, and royalties or other ‘soft’ costs.”
      And $10 for labour per tablet? Seems a bit low to me, don’t you think?

  • Matt_99_hey

    no wonder they are pushing the 32GB left and right, they are making a killing in profit compared to the 16GB. Way to go HP! 

  • Mark

    Still have to pay the people that wrote the software, marketing, design, electricity, ect… But it is also nice to know how much it cost to make.

    • Dude

      Doesn’t justify charging $100 more for just $20 more hardware. And I don’t like the “but Apple does that too” excuse.

      • http://twitter.com/PlasticWig Joshua K

        They are running a business after all. If they charge substantially less than Apple some people will see it as an inferior cheap imitation product.

        • Anonymous

          It IS an inferior cheap imitation product!

          • Tonymac32

            Lol and you’re a troll.

          • Mtv757

            but gumfactor is right! The majority of people will pick and ipad2 over a tp anyday. I work in the utility business and nobody here even know what webos much less know that they have a touchpad and a veer out…..

          • Anonymous

            But that still doesn’t mean that it’s an “inferior, cheap, product”…

            This is rather a marketing and imaging problem then one of being inferior or anything else.

          • Hpwebos777

            look, us webOS fans were not wanting to get into the tablet craze, we just wanted webos on a bigger screen . . . .  And I’m loving it.  :D

      • Abe

        Palm had about 1,000 employees. Lets say that in average each employee made about $50,000 a year. That alone is $50,000,000 million yearly to pay employees to develop webOS, engineer devices, market them and produce them. Add that $50,000,000 million as overhead on top of the the hardware costs. HP has been constantly adding a lot of resources into webOS which makes the cost of developing webOS and producing devices even higher. I think it is very justifiable to charge the same as Apple.

        • Dude

          And let’s say they overpriced it, judging by the laggy software and the tiny app catalog, and they ended up bombing in sales. Then how are you going to pay all those people? Whereas if they price it right and the things fly off the shelf, they’ll be in much better shape to pay those people.

          Your error is in assuming they’ll sell enough to pay $50,000,000 million (is that 50 million million? So 50 trillion?? No wonder Palm went under).

          I’d like to see you apply the same logic to some other huge multinational corporation, like, say, an oil company.

          • http://twitter.com/2254 Michael Marr

            And all the health benefits, pension, 401k, FICA, unemployment insurance, workers comp insurance, office and warehouse leases, shipping, cell phones, airfare — the list goes on.  My friend’s company spends $40k per month for cellphones for salespeople and other workers.

        • Dude

          And let’s say they overpriced it, judging by the laggy software and the tiny app catalog, and they ended up bombing in sales. Then how are you going to pay all those people? Whereas if they price it right and the things fly off the shelf, they’ll be in much better shape to pay those people.

          Your error is in assuming they’ll sell enough to pay $50,000,000 million (is that 50 million million? So 50 trillion?? No wonder Palm went under).

          I’d like to see you apply the same logic to some other huge multinational corporation, like, say, an oil company.

        • Matt_99_hey

          If only life were as simple as your assumptions, we would all be angels

      • Abe

        Palm had about 1,000 employees. Lets say that in average each employee made about $50,000 a year. That alone is $50,000,000 million yearly to pay employees to develop webOS, engineer devices, market them and produce them. Add that $50,000,000 million as overhead on top of the the hardware costs. HP has been constantly adding a lot of resources into webOS which makes the cost of developing webOS and producing devices even higher. I think it is very justifiable to charge the same as Apple.

      • Anon

        The cost of the design, testing, implementation..etc is what drives up the cost of a new product. Look at the hardware cost of a Nintendo 3DS, any Apple product, or any Dyson Product ($500 for a vacuum?!)

  • Den DiMarco

    Is this cost to build or just cost of the parts?

    In any case it’s not that simple. This does not take into account software design, development, testing, documentation and support costs, not to mention building overhead, etc. HP has to consider those as well when deciding how to make a profit.

  • Abe

    Dan, you should have also highlighted the fact the it also cost millions to develop the software which the hardware is on. This is purely for hardware.

    That’s why Android tablets can go so low on price. They only have to worry about the paying for hardware and not paying programmers millions to develop Android which HP and Apple does.

    • Dude

      Wait a minute, so who develops Sense, MotoBlur, etc.?

      • Abe

        The manufacturers do but the cost to create those skins does not compare to the cost of creating an operating system. If not everyone would be creating operating systems left and right.

        • Dude

          So they’re not creating operating systems left and right? What about all the various Linux distros, used for either personal use, enterprise, or even hobbyists? WebOS itself is based off Linux.

          • Tonymac32

            Various linux distros take 1 nerd about a week to create. If you’re going into new hardware drivers, new API’s, new environments and core kernel bits, then things get messy.

          • JR

            Get a grip and come back from the land of clueless imagination

        • Dude

          So they’re not creating operating systems left and right? What about all the various Linux distros, used for either personal use, enterprise, or even hobbyists? WebOS itself is based off Linux.

  • Anonymous

    they have to pay royalties plus a lot  advertising cost since no one knows webos ,they really not making that much on the 16GB.
    Europeans also need that 50 pounds or euros off the 32GB 

  • mike5

    So this doesn’t include the price of patents, R&D, prototypes, labor, transportation/shipping, marketing, etc.  I guess those costs are insignificant.  Obviously, the point of the article is simply the TouchPad itself, but some of the comments need to realize there are other costs involved.

    How much does the 787 (the Dreamliner) cost Boeing to make?  There is not a single one in commercial use, yet it has been in development for probably over 10 years.  Trust me, it has cost Boeing a ton.  There are more costs to a product than the parts alone.

  • http://profiles.google.com/anayagamingllc Jason Buffalo

    Also i have to say these costs is per item, HP could have made a deal with QualCom and purchase the CPU in Mass with a discount, also some of the needed Chips are also from Qualcom, they mite just came with the CPU for free who knows, but the price range is about right, you let the customer pay for the hardware plus a bit extra,
    So far the Software and Marketing is concerned is a bit more complicated, because you can not put that on a single device,this is where Budgeting comes in.

  • http://profiles.google.com/anayagamingllc Jason Buffalo

    Also i have to say these costs is per item, HP could have made a deal with QualCom and purchase the CPU in Mass with a discount, also some of the needed Chips are also from Qualcom, they mite just came with the CPU for free who knows, but the price range is about right, you let the customer pay for the hardware plus a bit extra,
    So far the Software and Marketing is concerned is a bit more complicated, because you can not put that on a single device,this is where Budgeting comes in.

  • http://twitter.com/Rennnat Rennat

    This is a very competitive price indeed. I feel much more justified now when I pay $500 for my TouchPad when I get it.

  • Kussface

    does this mean we can go up to 1.5GHz with some Kernels?

  • Malette

    Price to make seems a bit high and labor costs really low. Though I know a part of their income comes from app related fees and such they still need to make something off this product. Wouldn’t make financial sense otherwise which is what companies are in business for:money. I think this is more a price it’d cost to buy all parts seperatly, but I’m sure or at least I’d hope HP got a better deal on parts. The $100 for the extra storage that appears to only cost them $10 more well that sucks but isn’t uncommon. This happens with many things.

  • http://www.pamelahazelton.com Pamela Hazelton

    Hmmm… there’s marketing, labor, social media, contests, giveaways. Seriously, people are whining about a markup of less than 100%? Perhaps they should see what typical markups are for other tangible products.

    • Chirurgie

      Especially food in your local cafe, never mind more posh restaurants :)

  • http://www.pamelahazelton.com Pamela Hazelton

    Hmmm… there’s marketing, labor, social media, contests, giveaways. Seriously, people are whining about a markup of less than 100%? Perhaps they should see what typical markups are for other tangible products.