Businessweek is reporting that the iPod Shuffle costs less than $22 to make, and Apple retails it for $70. That is a very healthy profit margin for Apple. Remember, getting it down to that size and making it useful without a screen took a lot of (unaccounted for?) engineering. Apple also spends more than the average MP3-maker company on marketing.
a teardown doesn't account for the costs of design, software, manufacturing, or shipping, these cost estimates help fill in the blanks toward estimating the profit on each device sold.
All told, the cost of the shuffle's components, the head
