Apple COO Jeff Williams says the company is “very aware” of concerns over the rising cost of the iPhone and Mac computers.

Williams, who delivered a brief speech at Elon University on Friday, also disputes analysts’ cost estimates of Apple’s products, which recently suggested a 256GB iPhone XS Max can be manufactured for just $443 a unit.

Apple has long been criticised for its hefty price tags, and its best products have never been cheap. The success of the $1,000 iPhone X during late 2017 and early 2018 helped to drown out some of the concern from analysts, but with the latest lineup struggling, the pressure is piling on again.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has already admitted that the company will “rethink” its prices, particularly those for the iPhone, and now Williams has reassured fans that Apple is “very aware” of their concerns.

Apple isn’t ignoring price problems

“It’s something we’re very aware of,” Williams said during a question and answer session at Elon University on February 22. “We do not want to be an elitist company … We want to be an egalitarian company, and we’ve got a lot of work going on in developing markets.”

During his short speech, Williams talked about Apple’s insane growth since he joined the company as head of worldwide procurement in 1998. The iPhone has played a massive part in that, but with demand for the latest models falling, there is growing concern that its glory days are over.

But is Apple really pushing up its prices just to claim even bigger profit margins? It seems the costs to manufacture its most popular devices aren’t as low as many reports have led us to believe.

Apple products aren’t cheap to produce

When probed by a student about Apple’s rising prices, and the estimates that suggest even the most expensive iPhones cost less than $500 to manufacture, Williams explained that analysts have it all wrong.

“The stories that come out about the cost of our products [have been] the bane of my existence from the beginning of time, including our early days,” he said. “Analysts don’t really understand the cost of what we do and how much care we put into making our products.”

The iPhone isn’t the only costly product Apple sells, either. The company has also gone to great lengths and expense to make the Apple Watch a lot more than just another fitness tracker.

Williams described how Apple has built its very own physiology lab, with 40 licensed nurses, and enlisted over 10,000 study participants to develop some of Apple Watch’s most important features.

How will Apple stop falling iPhone sales?

Apple has already cut iPhone prices in some markets in an effort to reverse falling demand. It has also joined forces with Alipay to make the device much more affordable for fans in China. But future plans remain unclear for now.

Many fans are hoping that this year’s iPhone lineup will bring smaller price tags this fall, but it would be very out of character for Apple to cut prices on brand new devices.

Via: The Times News