There is no more charger in the box when you buy a new phone. The manufacturers would prefer that you didn’t know why…
Not all new smartphones are created equal and, depending on your needs and means, you may have radically different performance from one phone to another. On the other hand, all smartphones have one thing in common: they all need a charger to be able to be used on a daily basis. Indeed, even if you have the best phone on the planet, it won’t be of much use if you don’t have the means to recharge it! And unfortunately, the charger has become an additional cost to now take into account when purchasing a phone. As long as an old charger is tired, defective, obsolete or simply unsuitable for your new jewelry, you will have to buy one, in addition to the coveted smartphone.
For many years, iconic manufacturers like Samsung, Apple or Google provided chargers in the box of their latest smartphone. The charging devices provided weren’t always the most powerful, but they were still compatible with your new device! A very practical habit which meant you didn’t have to go back to the checkout to find a charger suitable for your new phone.
But for several years, more and more manufacturers have abandoned this practice and it has become increasingly rare to find a charger in the packaging of your brand new smartphone, even when the latter costs more than 1000 euros! Some brands like OnePlus and Xiaomi, however, continue to provide powerful chargers with their latest models, such as the recent Redmi Note 13.
Why such a turnaround? The primary argument put forward by brands is ecological. On its official website, Samsung indicates in particular that the brand “will do everything to protect the environment and, by removing the headphones and charger from the box of its Galaxy smartphones, try to limit the waste of resources”. Apple also recently boasted that it had avoided the consumption of 816,000 tonnes of copper, zinc and even tin thanks to this decision. An approach that makes sense as the smartphone industry weighs on the environment.
But the other reason, more shameful, is obviously economic. By providing a charger and headphones with each new smartphone, manufacturers imposed additional charges on themselves. The additional cost even seems gigantic when we know that around 1.23 billion phones were sold in 2023. The brands also estimate that you probably already have a previous charger. Why bother getting you a new one?
And there’s even better news for Apple, Samsung and other manufacturers, who are taking advantage of it to boost their turnover. At prices set on the market between 10 and 15 euros per unit, or even 25 euros at Apple, far from the cost price at the time of production, the brands save on the tail side and amass the profits on the tail side by selling you more chargers. . Analysts from the CCS Insight firm, for example, calculated in 2022 that Apple had made savings of nearly 6 billion euros by removing chargers and headphones from the boxes, while achieving 267.5 million euros in additional turnover. Saving on production costs is good. Making more profits at the same time is even better!