What you need to know
- A third-party estimate reveals how much Google paid for the Pixel Watch’s materials.
- According to Counterpoint Research, the smartwatch costs $123 to manufacture.
- Samsung and display maker BOE seem to account for the majority of the Pixel Watch’s total cost.
Technology companies naturally not only recoup their manufacturing costs, but also increase the retail price of their products to make a profit. Most of the time it does it without blowing up its MSRP too much, but a third-party estimate revealed that this may not be the case with the Google Pixel Watch.
According to Counterpoint Research (opens in new tab), the total cost to build the Pixel Watch is just $123. Considering the smartwatch costs $349 for the GPS + Bluetooth-only variant and $399 for the LTE model, that’s a big profit margin.
Counterpoint allocates most of that number to the processor that powers the wearable device. This means that Samsung, which manufactured his 10nm-based Exynos 9110 chipset inside the watch, is taking his 20% of the cost.
Counterpoint says Google’s first smartwatch “unleashes the power of the latest Wear OS 3.5 using a high-performance processor.” However, the market research firm argued that the tech giant could have used a more powerful chipset such as his Exynos W920 platform if it wanted to give users a more seamless experience.
Pixel Watch also includes a co-processor for improved power efficiency. While this made the device more feature-packed, it also raised the retail price significantly, according to Counterpoint.The two processors together with the Kingstone 32GB + 2GB ePoP memory accounted for about 27% of the total cost. increase.
In addition, the display segment is also a significant contributor to costs, with BOE accounting for over 14% of the total. The display maker is the sole supplier of the Pixel Watch’s 1.2-inch diameter OLED display, which comes with some great features like 1,000 nit peak brightness and custom 3D Corning glass protection.
Perhaps it’s worth noting that the Pixel Watch is selling in the same ballpark as some of the best Android smartwatches money can buy, including the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5, which starts at $279 for the 40mm Bluetooth model and $329 for the 40mm LTE model. increase. However, its hardware falls short of the competition, as some of its components are older than those found in competing smartwatches.
Google’s dedication to the Pixel Watch is commendable, even though it lacked some features at launch. Regular software updates help improve what was already considered one of the best smartwatches.
