'ZDNET Recommends': What exactly does it mean?
ZDNET's recommendations are based on many hours of testing, research, and comparison shopping. We gather data from the best available sources, including vendor and retailer listings as well as other relevant and independent reviews sites. And we pore over customer reviews to find out what matters to real people who already own and use the products and services we’re assessing.
When you click through from our site to a retailer and buy a product or service, we may earn affiliate commissions. This helps support our work, but does not affect what we cover or how, and it does not affect the price you pay. Neither ZDNET nor the author are compensated for these independent reviews. Indeed, we follow strict guidelines that ensure our editorial content is never influenced by advertisers.
ZDNET's editorial team writes on behalf of you, our reader. Our goal is to deliver the most accurate information and the most knowledgeable advice possible in order to help you make smarter buying decisions on tech gear and a wide array of products and services. Our editors thoroughly review and fact-check every article to ensure that our content meets the highest standards. If we have made an error or published misleading information, we will correct or clarify the article. If you see inaccuracies in our content, please report the mistake via this form.
How much does it cost Apple to make a Vision Pro headset?
Apple Vision Pro
Apple's new class of product, the Vision Pro headset, comes with an impressive price tag starting at $3,499. But how much does it cost the company to build one? This is a question that Omdia wanted to answer, so it compiled a Bill of Materials (BoM) and did some number crunching.
Breaking down the headset into 11 groups of components, the company found that the most expensive components by far were the two main micro-OLED displays. Manufactured by Sony Semiconductors, these cost Apple an estimated $456, accounting for 29.6% of the total BoM.
Review: Apple Vision Pro: Fascinating, flawed, and needs to fix 5 things
Next on the list are the brains of the unit, two processors that handle the workload.
There's an M2 chip acting as the main processor. This is the same chip that powered the 2022 MacBook Air and is tasked with running the VisionOS operating system and handling image processing. There's also a separate R1 chip that manages the inputs from the cameras, microphones, and myriad other sensors.
The price for these two is estimated to be $240, which is 15.6% of the total BoM.
Also: Vision Pros are cracking for no apparent reason: Here's what to do if it happens to you
Totaling up all the other bits and pieces, from the frame of the headset to the battery, Omdia estimates the total BoM to be $1,542, or 44% of the cost of the cheapest Vision Pro.
Apple Vision Pro BOM cost and supplier estimations
Is a BoM that accounts for 44% of the sale price high or low?
Also: I've tried Vision Pro and other top XR headsets and here's the one most people should buy
It's about the ballpark.
For comparison, estimates put the BoM of a 256GB iPhone 15 Pro Max at around $500, or about 42% of the retail price.
If you think you can calculate a profit margin from this, don't bother because it's impossible to figure out all the associated costs, from R&D to assembly and shipping.
Also, this isn't going to be like the iPhone where Apple sells millions. Omdia estimates that Apple will produce some 200,000 Vision Pro units this year, and "an estimated 1 million units are projected within the few years beyond 2024 with the launch of the new Vision Pro."