Multi-sourced iPhone

How the iPhone widens the US trade deficit with China
Under this titel Yuqing Xing describes how an iPhone is assembled and what its cost of production are:

"Today’s trade is not that experienced by the British economist David Ricardo two hundred years ago (Grossman and Rossi-Hansberg 2008). It is almost impossible to define clearly where a manufactured product is made in the global market. This is why on the back of an iPhone one can read “Designed by Apple in California, Assembled in China”. In this column, I use the smartphone in your pocket to argue that current trade statistics have distorted the reality of the Sino-US trade imbalance and the appreciation of the renminbi would have little impact on the imbalance."

Some interesting numbers:
Production cost of an iPhone:~ 180 US$
Profit margin for Apple: 60-65% of the sales price
Value added in China: 6.50 $ per iPhone

read on at Vox