Mobile Phone Makers to Standardize Chargers by 2012
Tue Feb 17, 2009 10:47 am
Leading mobile phone manufacturers announced today they had agreed to produce a standardized charger for the industry in a move set to save money for consumers and reduce waste.
The agreement between 17 mobile phone operators and major handset makers will standardize chargers by 2012 for most cell phones shipped.
Currently, each manufacturer has its own charger design, sometimes using several across different models, which increases replacement costs for users and leads to unwanted cables when a consumer swaps brands.
Industry body the GSM Association calculates a reduction in greenhouse gases from manufacturing and transporting replacement chargers of 13.6 to 21.8 million tons a year. Discarded chargers currently generate more than 51,000 tons of waste a year.
"This is a broad agreement that will move the industry to a single, energy-efficient charger for all mobile phones," said Michael O'Hara, Marketing Director for the GSMA.
The initial group of companies that have joined the initiative include 3 Group, AT&T, KTF, LG, mobilkom austria, Motorola, Nokia, Orange, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, Telenor, Telstra, T-Mobile and Vodafone.
The new standard shape to be adopted will be Mini-USB. The charger will also meet higher energy efficiency targets, with up to 50 percent energy savings.
Mobile phone makers had been under pressure from the European Commission to produce a standardized charger.
Introducing a one-size-fits-all charger might help the firms to cut costs since new handsets would no longer necessarily need to be sold with a charger in the future.
But the manufacturers will lose the revenues they currently make from replacements of lost or broken chargers.
