Apple Vision Pro is the hottest tech product in the world at the moment, and it comes with a pretty hefty $3,499 starting price tag. According to new research from Omdia, the mixed-reality headset costs roughly $1,500 to produce — that’s less than half the total cost.
Originally reported by CNBC, Vision Pro’s hardware components are estimated to cost a total of $1,542. Unsurprisingly, the most expensive component is said to be the 1.25-inch micro-OLED displays which are manufactured by Sony. Sony charges Apple $228 per display, making the cost $456 just for the displays. LG also supplies an AMOLED sub-display, which adds $70 to the total display cost.
The next most expensive component is the M2 chip, also found inside Apple’s best MacBooks, as well as the R1 chip, a custom processor made to handle the sensors and the video feeds on the device. Omdia estimates that these chips cost Apple $240.
While it may seem like Apple is making a huge profit selling Vision Pro headsets for $3,499, the $1,500 manufacturing costs don’t take into account any of the research and development, production costs, factory costs, shipping costs, marketing, or packaging that goes into making an Apple product.
In February, during Apple’s earnings call, Tim Cook was asked about the cost of the Apple Vision Pro, to which he mentioned the high R&D costs of making such a revolutionary product.
“There’s 5,000 patents in the product, and it’s built on many innovations that Apple has spent multiple years on from silicon to displays and significant AI and machine learning. All the hand tracking, the room mapping, all of this stuff is driven by AI, and so we’re incredibly excited about it,”
Worth the price?
There’s no denying that the Apple Vision Pro is an incredibly expensive product, but considering the amount of technology that Apple has crammed into the ski goggle-like headset, it’s not that outlandish a price. As with all first-generation products, research and development is a huge factor that plays a part in increasing the initial cost to consumers, but hopefully, with future Apple Vision products, Apple will be able to lower the price.
We’re already getting excited about the future of visionOS, despite the fact that Vision Pro hasn’t even launched internationally yet. We expect to see more developments as the product matures, and with WWDC just a few months away, we might not have long to wait.
