Report claims Apple saved $6.5 billion by removing charger and EarPods from iPhone boxes

Removing the charger and EarPods from the iPhone box allowed 70% more devices to fit on a pallet

More boxes on a pallet would allow Apple to ship more phones to users at one time. As a result, using smaller boxes would allow Apple to reduce yearly carbon emissions by 2 million metric tons, the company said. That is equivalent to taking 500,000 cars off the road.

But not everyone believes that Apple made this move, which was copied by most major phone manufacturers including Samsung and Google, to help the environment. While many will agree that Apple is removing the charger from iPhone boxes for a “green” reason, the “green” they are thinking about is the color of money.

If a consumer just wanted to replace the EarPods, that could be arranged for an additional $19. So even if an Apple customer just wanted to add a charging brick and the wired EarPods with his new iPhone, that would cost him an additional $38. When you consider the millions of iPhone units Apple sells each year, this certainly runs into plenty of money flowing into Apple’s coffers.

Reducing the size of the box and allowing 70% more devices on each pallet should help Apple reduce its shipping costs by 40% which in turn should allow the company to reduce the price of the phone to consumers. Some analysts have computed that Apple is saving the equivalent of $35 on each iPhone it sells. Yet, there has been no cost reduction from the firm.

Since it announced that it was removing the charger and EarPods from the iPhone box, Apple is believed to have shipped 190 million iPhone units. Totaling up the amount of money that Apple has saved from this cost-cutting move and adding the amount of money it saved on shipping comes to the £5 billion (or $6.5 billion) that the Daily Mail computed. In other words, had Apple passed every penny of savings to its customers, the public could be $6.5 billion richer.

And we’re not even including the $293.4 million bucks that the Daily Mail says that Apple customers spent on accessories since the company got stingy about what it puts in the box along with the iPhone.

So let’s look at it this way. Apple saved money on shipping and by not having to purchase the charging brick and EarPods that used to go in the box. The public not only didn’t save any money, but it also had to shell out to replace the accessories they wanted that they no longer received for “free.”

This $6.5 billion goes straight to the bottom line increasing Apple’s profits and pushing up the price of Apple’s stock. In turn, executives like Tim Cook benefit to the tune of millions of dollars while the public pays to replace the missing accessories. Nice work if you can get it.