German Government Wants 7 Years Of Updates For Smartphones

It’s a good time to be a smartphone owner in Germany. According to an article by Heise.de, the German government is looking to go beyond the proposals of the EU Commission and push a rule ensuring 7 years of smartphone updates and spare parts availability. This is considerably higher than the EU’s proposal of 5 years for smartphones and 6 years for tablets.

Besides this, the government also wants better transparency on spare parts availability and pricing. This would be extremely beneficial to consumers and third-party service centres, but won’t bode well for manufacturers. Smartphone sales are their bread and butter, a hit here, could have severe ramifications especially to smaller outfits that rely on razor thin profit margins.

Being able to keep a smartphone up to date for 5-7 years would be great news for German consumers. However, at the rapid pace at which mobile technology is advancing, a smartphone becomes obsolete within 2 years of service life, 3 in the case of flagship devices. Most of us upgrade to newer models within said timeframe especially when contract renewals come due.

The proposal won’t go down well with smartphone makers but it will be music to the ears of consumers who only resort to changing phones when absolutely necessary. We shall have to wait and see how this plan eventually pans out.