When it comes to smartphone upgrades, consumers now think that companies like Apple and Samsung release too many new models and don’t put enough effort towards recycling.
A new study from Greenpeace surveyed over 6,000 people in the U.S. China, Russian, Mexico, Germany and South Korea and found that the average person has at least three phones at home, and more than half said they more than half said they would be okay with changing phones less often.
The survey is part of Greenpeace’s new “True Innovation” campaign that challenges IT companies to make products that are just as innovative for the planet as they are for our lives by reducing energy and toxic chemical use.
“The recycling rate of mobile phones is particularly low compared to other electronic goods, and people don’t know if they can contact recycling companies, the government or the brand,” said Chih An Lee, Greenpeace’s global detox campaigner. “Most don’t know how to wipe data, but that’s the first thing certified recycling should provide.”
Researchers found that nearly 30% of smartphone owners upgrade because their previous device was broken, while slightly more than that upgraded because they wanted a device with more up-to-date features.
Considering Apple and Samsung absolutely dominate the worldwide smartphone market, a lot of blame can be thrown at them. Samsung hasn’t made recycling a big focus of its business yet.
Meanwhile, Apple is making it a point to increase its recycling efforts. The company even touted some of the tech it uses to recover iPhone waste by revealing its recycling robot Liam earlier this year.
Buster Hein is a freelance writer who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Twitter: @bst3r.
11 responses to “Consumers say Apple and Samsung make too many smartphones”
Most likely, it has to do with majority of Samsung phones that look like iPhones, hence the miscount by “consumers”.
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I have a question for all of you phone hacking/jail breaking guys out there. I still have the grandfathered unlimited data plan from Verizon and refuse to update my plan becasue I don’t want to give up my unlimited data. I still have an iPhone 5 running IOS 9.3.4 and when the day comes I will pay full price for my new phone because I do not want to update my contract and lose my unlimited data. The problem is I want to enable personal wifi hotspot tethering and Verizon has a block on it and won’t even enable the tethering feature on my phone because of the unlimited data. The best they can offer is to set up a seperate data tethering line to my phone while purchasing an additional data plan for tethering; who would want to do that when you have unlimited data already haha? Are there any options to bypass the Verizon block of the wifi mobile hotspot tethering that does not involve jail breaking my phone? I know some people really like jail breaking their phones, but I have read and heard about too many stories how it becomes less stable and more prone to crashing. Some people might not mind going through that process of fixing their phone after it crashes but I really do not want to deal with that. If anyone has any advise or a link to provide some help please let me know. Thank you!
The problem with comparing sales of Android phones vs iPhones is this. Android phones’ average price is $250, the average price of an iPhone is $600. iPhones start at $400, Android phones start at around $10. Most Android phones are STILL old, outdated 32 Bit processors, old, outdated OS versions and I’m sure most of them are well below the $250 price that consume over 70% of the install base and they are pretty much cheaply priced phones for the people that want/need the most basic of phones. Not that there is anything wrong with that.
As far as iPhone sales going down in China? I’m sure part of it is based on political bias against foreign companies. Just like there are people in the US that won’t buy Chinese made products, there are people in China that won’t buy products from US based companies. There is also the fact that China has been going through their own economic problems where people simply don’t buy as many high priced products.
Samsung’s not having as much success with their flagship models either. Look at the S7/S7 Edge. Both have been shipping for 5 months and they’ve only sold about 26 Million in combined TOTAL sales. in comparison, their best selling model, the S4, sold 40 Million in about the same time period.
I just think people just don’t see the NEED to constantly upgrade their phones with expensive phones. Plus, when new rumors of a new Apple iPhone start emerging, people just automatically want to wait until the next release to buy one.
On a personal observation, I think Apple does need to step up the development and release phones with the following features in addition to what they currently have.
1. Waterproof, even water resistant to IP68 would be an improvement.
2. Shatterproof screens
3. Quick charging
4. Longer battery life
5. Increased RAM
6. Increase storage (32GB minimum)
7. Wireless charging
I am hoping Apple will have all 7, but I doubt it, I feel they might have only 2,maybe 3 of the 7 features. Which of the 7 the iPhone 7 will have is still unknown, but we’ll see what happens with the new model and how well it does in sales.
People keep multiple phones for several reasons. Some people just hoard technology. Some people want spares around just in case. Some people simply don’t know about recycling or they aren’t giving enough money to people to bring their devices in when they buy a new one. I only own one smartphone, I turned in my last one to get some trade in savings. I don’t know if they are pushing trading in your old phone.
Some have old phones but aren’t worth trading in because they are too old, or in a broken state. I have a friend with a 4S and they couldn’t get any trade in value because the screen was broken and it was too old.
That’s part of the problem with these recycling programs. They don’t offer anything or take in phones that are too old.
Samsung make way too much of everything.
Agenda much, Greenpeace? Agreed that there should be better trade-in programs for all electronics good, but one hurdle is the perceived value that consumers place on their phones, they expect cash-money for trading their phone in, NOT a free recycling program. A responsible company would build in cost of disposal into the product’s COGS at the very least.
Yes, because we all need a new phone each year :rolleyes:. The truth is – even if we upgrade, we end up not using most of what the ‘new’ has to offer over the ‘old’ and yet we’re so spoiled we complain about anything and everything we get, even though what we get is like 10000x more than what we used to have just a few years ago.
I don’t think this yearly cycle is sustainable at all and it has to go in my opinion. It’s not good for innovation because companies just push products to meet the cycle’s refresh point. It’s not good for consumers because we’re being sucked out of money and end up not appreciating anything. It’s not good for the companies because it’s simply not a sustainable business model and 1 behavioral change in the market can collapse your company – and it’s not good for the environment as well…
Having said that – i’m not going to ‘upgrade’ to new iPhone 7 because I cannot imagine how my 6S will suddenly become ‘useless’ overnight or start performing so bad I will have to get a new device. It won’t. It will keep on going for a lot longer…
Looking at it from the consumer POV – just because a new phone comes out doesn’t mean the consumer HAS to buy a new one. A yearly upgrade cycle makes sense to attract groups of people coming off a 2-year contract cycle. That may change, but if they don’t come out with a new phone, there’s a chance they’ll miss a group of people looking for a new phone after two years.
Why do people keep their smartphones? I’ve always sold mine for a decent price, and it usually pays for 60-70% of my next upgrade.
“Consumers say Apple and Samsung make too many smartphones”
On any given day, at any given minute, and asking any single or multiple owners, the headline could just as easily read, “Consumers say Apple and Samsung make too few smartphones”