Since the 3G iPhone was officially released on June 9th at the WWDC, people have been estimating what it costs to make, how much Apple will profit from each handset sold, how much AT&T is going to pay Apple for the subsidy. A new number regarding the bill of materials for the 3G iPhone has surfaced. It appears it costs just $174.33 to manufacture.

That means that Apple actually saved a little over $50 from what they used to pay for the former version. And all despite the inclusion of 3G and GPS chips. iSuppli, a reasearch company has reached to this conclusion. Excluding marketing and research, an iPhone costs $174.33 to make.

Lowering the bill of materials, Apple also managed to lower the retail price. Andrew Rassweller iSuppli principal analyst says:

iSuppli believes Apple aimed for a more cost-effective design for the 3G iPhone compared to the 2G, in order to lower the retail price, which will allow the company to seed adoption and to capture maximum market share now—while the company still has buzz and a perceived differentiation relative to its competitors.

Apple kept many of the initial parts and redesigned the main board. They have also included an unsoldered battery, easier and cheaper to replace. Apple has worked also on making the iPhone worldwide compatible. The Infineon chipset adds WCDMA support for countries like Japan or Korea.

Keeping all that in mind it seems that Apple is getting a 55% profit margin before marketing and software costs. And they just sold 1 million of these devices. I bet other manufacturers are biting their nails while hoping they’ll be able to create a similar best seller.