Behind the European Unified Charger: Helping Mobile Phone Manufacturers Reduce Costs

Europeans will never worry about forgetting to bring mobile phone chargers. They can use their chargers in the office to use them for their own purposes, regardless of whether the Other mobile phone brand is the same as theirs.

The European Commission announced in Brussels, Belgium, on February 8, 2011 that Europe will harmonize mobile phone charger standards, ie mobile phone chargers that use a micro-USB interface. Micro-USB is a new USB (Universal Serial Bus) interface that supports both charging and data transfer functions. This unified standard was jointly proposed by the European Electronic Technology Standardization Committee and the European Institute of Communications Technology. It not only unified the mobile phone interface, but also made unified requirements on the safety and electromagnetic radiation of the mobile phone.

This kind of universal charger is expected to be available in the European Union in the first half of this year and will be mass-produced, as consumers will replace one mobile phone in an average of two years. It may take two years for the new mobile phone charger to dominate the market.

In order to promote universal chargers, the EU has spared no effort. In December 2010, the European Union has announced specific technical details. The 14 major mobile phone manufacturers including Apple, Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Blackberry all stated that they will comply with this agreement.

Compared with the past universal chargers, two-piece chargers and chargers, which consist of power connection devices and data lines, the power connection devices are unified, and the data lines are not unified. Compared to this kind of unified mobile phone and charger interface, the practice is even more common. Thoroughly and environmentally friendly. According to the data provided by the Global Mobile Communications Commission, the new charger will be able to reduce energy consumption by half.

The EU’s decision to do this stems from consumer complaints: Most mobile phone chargers are thrown away, causing unnecessary costs and waste. In the EU, there are currently more than 30 mobile phone chargers in circulation, and if this agreement can be implemented, it will reduce 51,000 tons of e-waste, and it will also reduce 13.6 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions.

Europe's famous mobile site top 10. Jonathan Leggett, com's editor-in-chief, said that this move was for a long time, but thankfully, it finally came.

Antonio Tajani, the European Commission’s ambassador for corporate affairs, believes this is an N-win situation. But big manufacturers, large operators, and several industry associations may not think so at the beginning. To allow them to sign on the agreement paper, only environmental protection is not enough, they must let them see the benefits. Although mobile phone manufacturers often launched products under the banner of environmental protection. For example, Nokia had launched the N79 green mobile phone. The factory packaging is not equipped with a charger. This is to encourage the use of its old charger.

What they are worried about is that if they give up their past charger standards, they will reduce consumers’ reliance on their brands and they can easily choose their opponent’s machine.

Ultimately, however, unified charger standards help handset manufacturers reduce costs. Most mobile phones produced by Blackberry and HTC, as well as some of Nokia's mobile phones, have earlier accepted such chargers. But there are still some hard bones, such as the most sought after Apple Inc. in the smart phone field.

Apple has a large-scale accessories business. Apple has always had its own charger dock connector for iPhone and other iPod devices. The company outsourced this standard to accessories manufacturers, and this move would benefit many accessory manufacturers because they must also adapt to this standard.

Therefore, when the agreement was reached in February 2009, Apple was not on the manufacturer's list. Until now, although Apple has joined the camp, it is still unclear whether it will add micro-USB to its ranks of chargers, or whether it will only use micro-USB standard chargers. It is unclear whether Apple plans to add an additional port on the fifth-generation iPhone or replace the current base connector with Micro-USB. If Apple makes changes for Europe, it may not forget North America. As a result, Apple's charging and data interfaces will be changed for decades.

Sony Ericsson is another company that originally insisted on using its own charger standard. Now it is also persuaded that it will benefit itself because it can help it reduce the cost of packaging and logistics. Of course, the commitment to reduce carbon emissions is also one of the reasons.

For the agreement reached, the GSM Association (GSMA) contributed. This is a global trade association that represents 750 GSM mobile phone operators in 218 countries and territories worldwide and covers more than 86% of global mobile phone users.

As early as February of 2009, GSMA said it had reached an agreement with the handset manufacturer. The American Wireless Communications and Internet Association also decided in April 2009 to support this agreement. At that time, the GSMA set a goal that by 2012, universal charging standards will be universal. Until January 1, 2012, most new handsets will support the new unified charger, and the newly-produced chargers will reach this uniform standard.

Rob Conway, CEO of GSMA, said, “The mobile phone industry plays a crucial role in solving environmental problems, and this project will bring a lot of resources to save.” And smartphone implementation of this standard bears the brunt.

About 400 million mobile phones are in use in Europe, and about 185 million mobile phones are sold each year. This agreement is mainly applicable to high data-intensive mobile phones, including high-end ordinary mobile phones and smart phones. These mobile phones are the fastest growing parts of the mobile phone industry. More than half of the newly-produced mobile phones in 2010 were classified as such.

As for whether the Europeans hope to promote this ambition to the rest of the world, it still depends on the support of governments of all countries.

There have been similar attempts in China. In June 2007, China also issued a national standard for mobile phone chargers. However, China's "universal charger" is different from EU's chargers that require uniform standards. The EU mobile phone charger regulates the interface between the charger and the mobile phone and forces the unified use of the Micro-USB standard. However, the Chinese national standard only requires the separation of the mobile phone charger and the mobile phone charging cable. The power plug must be unified and the mobile phone terminal is not mandatory. Charge interface standard. In other words, although each type of mobile phone produced by China will not be equipped with a charger, it must be equipped with a personalized data line.

This is still inconvenient. And this standard is just a recommendation, most foreign mobile phone manufacturers have ignored this requirement, such as Nokia and Motorola. Currently in the market, only some domestic brands can use universal mobile phone chargers, and many foreign brands cannot use mobile phones.

But now things have changed. Let the Chinese market also use uniform standards, which should not be difficult for the European Union, which strives to expand to the globe in three to four years. Look at the popularity of iPhones and Android phones in China.

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