Rumors related to the smaller sibling of all the iPhones have been rife in the first two week of this year. So far, because of some conflicting media reports, the talk about a cheaper and smaller phone was limited to inception of the device.

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However, a recent casual estimation by a mobile industry analyst has revealed the cost on which the Cupertino-based tech company would like to sell its smaller iPhone, or let's say iPhone Mini.

According to Sameer Singh, "Apple currently makes a gross margin of 68% on the iPhone 5, which means that it would expect a gross margin hovering around 60% from the iPhone Mini. This would put the price of the iPhone Mini in the $299-$349 range, i.e. in the same ballpark as the iPad Mini."

Singh estimated the production cost of the phone at $144.03 by keeping some points related to the phone's processor, display, battery, camera, and other aspects in mind.

He kept the storage of the phone at 8GB and the RAM, just like the iPhone 4 and 4S, at 512 MB. The estimate of the processor and the camera costs were made keeping the iPad mini's components. iPad mini sports a 5 megapixel camera and is powered by Apple's SOC A5 processor.

As far as the display of the phone is concerned, Singh said, "Since the screen size of most competing low-mid range smartphones is in the 3.5-4 inch range, we can't expect Apple to go smaller. Since Apple has chosen a 4 inch screen size for the high-end iPhone 5 model (for now), I've assumed that the iPhone Mini would have a 3.5 inch screen."

He also estimates that keeping the retail price at $299-$349 Apple will manage to earn profit of 52-63 percent.

Singh, just like an earlier DigiTimes report, predicted that the iPhone Mini will basically be release keeping emerging markets like China and India.

"Some sources claimed that they have seen the sample of the low-cost iPhone, which will come with a larger display, meeting the prevailing trend for the adoption of 5-inch displays for high-end models. They added that the low-priced iPhone will also have a brand new exterior design, the DigiTimes report had stated.

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