Under the Hood
Smartphones are incredible feats of technology, squeezing innumerable parts into a rectangle typically under 20 in2 and ~ 1/3 of an inch thick. Most smartphone owners rarely see what is on the inside of their phones, making purchase decisions (hopefully) on matching specifications to their use profile. But inside those rectangles, packed in like sardines, are literally hundreds of ICs and other components, along with a battery, display, and assorted cameras.
There are those that relish the thought of purchasing smartphones and then taking them apart, piece by piece, in order to quantify structure and cost. Such a group is TechInsights, who are known for their detailed teardowns of various CE devices. They have been kind enough to afford us a detailed look at one of their smartphone teardowns, which we summarize below.
The phone being disassembled here is the Sony (SNE) Xperia 1V, a device released in July of 2023. Sony is not a major smartphone brand but is known for the high quality of their phones, so the example below should be a guide as to what to look for in a high-end smartphone. We note that when the Xperia 1V was released, it sold for $1,399. The phone weighs 188 grams, runs on Android, and has a 6.48” OLED display, along with four cameras, and runs on a Qualcomm (QCOM) Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor.
While the greatest share of the BOM is the broad category of integrated circuits (45.7%), the camera subsystem captures 23.7%, due to the fact that it covers 4 cameras and associated electronics, lenses, etc. The display subsystem, which is a single 6.48” OLED display and a touchscreen, along with a polarizer and cover glass (total of 70 components), is next at 7.5%, followed by non-electronic parts (frame, etc.) at 7.2%. More relevant to the investment community would be the breakdown of the total component types and the IC category on a branded basis. As can be seen in the table below, the IC category carries the largest cost share by a large margin, putting significant weight on the brand share shown in the table that follows.
The phone being disassembled here is the Sony (SNE) Xperia 1V, a device released in July of 2023. Sony is not a major smartphone brand but is known for the high quality of their phones, so the example below should be a guide as to what to look for in a high-end smartphone. We note that when the Xperia 1V was released, it sold for $1,399. The phone weighs 188 grams, runs on Android, and has a 6.48” OLED display, along with four cameras, and runs on a Qualcomm (QCOM) Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor.
While the greatest share of the BOM is the broad category of integrated circuits (45.7%), the camera subsystem captures 23.7%, due to the fact that it covers 4 cameras and associated electronics, lenses, etc. The display subsystem, which is a single 6.48” OLED display and a touchscreen, along with a polarizer and cover glass (total of 70 components), is next at 7.5%, followed by non-electronic parts (frame, etc.) at 7.2%. More relevant to the investment community would be the breakdown of the total component types and the IC category on a branded basis. As can be seen in the table below, the IC category carries the largest cost share by a large margin, putting significant weight on the brand share shown in the table that follows.
Qualcomm supplies not only the phone’s Application and Baseband Processor (Snapdragon 8 Gen 2), but also supplies the audio codec, a number of power management chips, saw filters, RF tuners, and a number of multi-function front-end modules. We note that Sony’s share is higher than usual, as it uses its own branded components wherever posible, with SK Hynix supplying both DRAM and NAND. While the details of the lower level components are less important and carry relatively small type or brand share, it is interesting to note that the phone contains 7 PCB/flex boards which contain, in total, 1,708 components, all packed into something that fits into your pocket. While we knock smartphone brands for releasing new phones each year that are almost duplicates of what came before, it is a great feat of engineering that smartphones work at all, given the number of components that could fail. Credit where due.
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