Costs To Build BlackBerry Torch 9800 Near Those Of iPhone: iSuppli

The BlackBerry Torch 9800 carries a estimated bill of materials of $171.05, and probably costs about $12 to assemble, bringing Research In Motion's total cost for the smart phone to $183.05, according to the Teardown Analysis service at market research firm iSuppli.

The BlackBerry Torch 9800 is the first BlackBerry to feature a touch-screen and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, and is aimed at competing with new Google Android-based devices such as the HTC EVO 4G and Motorola Droid X, as well as the Apple iPhone 4 with iOS.

Meanwhile, early reports indicate that RIM only sold 150,000 BlackBerry Torch 9800s during the launch. Furthermore, Amazon.com cut $100 off its price tag, and is charging $99 with a two-year AT&T contract only five days after it was released.

From a hardware perspective, the BlackBerry Torch 9800 looks expensive with a total cost of $183.05 when compared to the iPhone 4.

iSuppli in June estimated the iPhone 4 bill of materials, which does not include assembly costs, to be $187.51 for the 16-GB model. However, that device retails from between $199 and $599.

iSuppli on Tuesday said the most expensive component of the BlackBerry Torch 9800 is the 3.2-inch diagonal TFT LCD with a 480 by 360 pixel resolution and touch screen, which it estimated to cost $34.85, or just over 20 percent of the entire BOM.

The smart phone's memory subsystem cost $34.25, or almost as much as the LCD. Te memory subsystem includes a 4-Gbyte eMMC NAND flash memory device, an 8-Gbit NAND flash, and 4-Gbit Mobile Double Data Rate (DDR) SDRAM from Samsung, as well as a SanDisk 4-Gbyte removable Micro SD memory card.

The third-most expensive component was the printed circuit boards and the enclosure, which iSuppli estimated cost $23.35, or 13.7 percent of the Torch’s BOM.

Other more pricier components include Marvell Technology Group's communications processor at $15, the Infineon Technologies' RF transceiver and power amplifier section at $13.90, and STMicroelectronics' STV0987 video/image processor at $12.40.

Andrew Hickey contributed to this story.