Iphones are stolen from people then they are being sold for their parts for a fraction of the price of an iphone.Back in California, there was a contraband which handed off to Wen and Tan,(Wen and Tan are suppliers in Asia that do contraband), who arranged to have the phones shipped to their contacts in Asia. The profit margin was enormous: In North America, wireless carriers typically subsidize the cost of our smartphones in order to lure us into multiyear voice and data contracts. To obtain a phone, in other words, we fork over a small fraction of the device’s actual market worth. Wen and Tan took advantage of the system by obtaining iPhones—through middlemen and mules—for $200 a pop, then selling them in China for close to $1,000. This is one of the many problems that stealing iphones pose.-From the Wired. a href="http://www.wired.com/2014/12/where-stolen-smart-phones-go/">
The parts for the iPhone 5 only cost Apple $167.50, according to new estimates. The estimate makes puts the iPhone 5 parts price tag about $36 more than iPhone 4S parts were. UBM Techinsights released their estimates on how much each iPhone 5 part costs this morning and as usual, it’s shockingly cheap. The $36 cost difference between the iPhone 5 and iPhone 4S is attributed to the larger Retina screen, 4G LTE chip, new A6 chip, and the new sensors and mics.