iPhone Analysts Prepare For Teardown

Say you stand in line Friday to buy an Apple (AAPL) iPhone; what will be the first you do with it when you get home? Send an email? Browse the web? Download some music? Or, maybe tear it to pieces?

Yes, tearing iPhones to pieces. A significant set of people are going to spend Friday night and part of the weekend buying iPhones and taking them apart for teardown analyses. The goal, of course, is to figure out who the main component suppliers are for the iPhone, both from a competitive standpoint, as well as from an investmenting point-of-view.

I know of three market research companies planning to do teardowns this weekend, plus a number of wireless companies and investment banks. One wireless company with which I'm aware plans to buy six iPhones on Friday and tear down three. Don't even ask why they need to tear down so many, but they are.

As a quick flashback to the past, here are some articles speculating about iPhone components.

Apple iPhone fuels speculation on design wins (EETimes)

Apple ups Balda orders for iPhone screens (Reuters)

iPhone plays (Stockpickr)

And while we're on the subject, here is a nicely-done Bloomberg article on the impact on the various carriers, in particular on Sprint.

AT&T, with 61 million users, holds about 26 percent of the 223 million U.S. mobile-phone accounts, based on data from the company and from the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association. Verizon has 59 million customers and a 25 percent share, while Sprint has 53.1 million, or 23 percent.

By the end of 2008, the iPhone may cost Verizon 949,000 subscribers, McCormack said.

Sprint is more vulnerable because unlike Verizon, the company doesn't own home-phone lines. Wireless revenue represented 86 percent of Sprint's sales in 2006, compared with 43 percent at Verizon, holder of a 55 percent stake in Basking Ridge, New Jersey-based Verizon Wireless.

Customers of Sprint also tend to be younger and technology- savvy, making them the perfect iPhone converts, said John Hodulik, a UBS AG analyst in New York who rates Sprint and Verizon a ``neutral.''

Comments

[Dan Poarch:]

Tearing down multiple phones, I would guess purchased from three different locations, would let you know how consistent they are in manufacturing. Are they swapping components based on availability? Are they manufacturing in two different plants? Etc. The other three would be consumer-level tested.

My interest is what happens to the tear downs after they get what they need? I see three engineers giddily re-assemling and running home to activate his new [free] iPhone. I'll hope their spouses believe them. ; )

2007 Jun 28 11:09 AM