Record breaking sales aren't all Apple has to celebrate, as figures released by iSuppli show that the new iPhone 3G is considerably cheaper to manufacture.

At $174.33, the BOM and manufacturing cost of the new iPhone is markedly less than the $227 that iSuppli estimated for the first-generation, 8Gbyte 2G iPhone in June 2007. While using a new design, the iPhone 3G really represents a refinement of the original iPhone 2G, according to iSuppli.

“The addition of 3G wireless capability represents an evolutionary design step for the iPhone, not a revolutionary one,” said Andrew Rassweiler, teardown services manager and principal analyst at iSuppli. “iSuppli believes Apple aimed for a more cost-effective design for the 3G iPhone compared to the 2G, in order to lower the retail price—which will allow the company to seed adoption and to capture maximum market share now—while the company still has buzz and a perceived differentiation relative to its competitors.”

The iPhone 3G’s use of an Infineon Technologies AG baseband chip that supports the HSDPA, WCDMA and EDGE air standards, plus the integration of three separate TriQuint Semiconductor Inc. tri-band WCDMA Power Amplifier Modules (PAMs), reflects the fact that the iPhone 3G is suited for sale worldwide.