Apple iPad mini costs $195 to be build, To be sold for $299 or Higher

The main goal behind the Apple iPad mini which is coming on the Next week's Event, to compete with the $149 Google Nexus 7 and the $200 Kindle fire HD, both are a 7-inch best selling Android tablets.

Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities, did some work and found that the 16GB Wi-Fi version of Apple's mini tablet costs $195 to build while the top of the line 64GB 4G LTE version costs Apple $254.50. Kuo expects Apple to start the pricing for the smaller tablet at $299 and up.

Consider that the Apple iPhone 5 generates gross margins of 213% to 257%. It must be partly the device itself as the gross margins on the third iteration of the Apple iPad weigh in at 58% to 103%. It is interesting that back in August, another analyst crunched the numbers and came up with the same $299 prediction for the price tag on the Apple iPad mini.