The Dutch company Fairphone, which specializes in the production of smartphones with a modular design and high maintainability, announced the permanent suspension of the Fairphone Easy program. It provided the opportunity to rent a smartphone, paying for its use at a set rate.
In 2022, Fairphone launched the Fairphone Easy program in the Netherlands, offering customers its smartphone subscription, which included repair, replacement and recycling of devices at the end of their service life. The program also encouraged customers to use smartphones for a longer period as subscription costs gradually decreased. In this way, the company contributed to reducing the volume of electronic waste, independently recycled devices, and also reused some materials in the production of gadgets.
However, the dynamics of the number of subscribers did not meet the company's expectations. Fairphone admits that its smartphone rental pricing model was not well chosen. It is noted that the first payment in the subscription was comparable in size to the price of a smartphone. Fairphone tried to communicate the long-term benefits of subscription to potential customers, but ultimately the company realized that many consumers preferred to own a smartphone rather than rent one.
“We have come to the sad realization that people prefer to own a smartphone rather than rent one,” the company said in a statement. The study found that consumers are five times more likely to buy Fairphone smartphones than to rent them. The appearance of the Fairphone 5 smartphone on the market further complicated the situation, since many users wanted to get a new device model, but this was not possible within the Fairphone Easy program.
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