Fewer cords, e-waste — decoding new EU rule that mandates one charger for phones & tablets

Rule, also intended help consumers save money, will come into force 2 years from now. Apple may be most affected, as it has its own 'Lightning' charger for iPhones.

European Parliament | Commons

New Delhi: One charger to rule them all — this is what rules issued by the European Parliament earlier this week mean for electronic device makers. 

According to the order, which will come into force a little over two years from now, brands will have to ensure that all their small and medium-sized devices — including mobile phones, tablets and cameras — are compatible with one standard kind of charging port, the USB Type-C.

Apple may be the most affected by the order, as unlike other brands that already have a USB Type-C charging port for mobile phones, the global tech giant has a proprietary ‘Lightning’ charging point and cable for iPhones, its biggest revenue earner. According to some analysts, however, Apple may have seen this coming.

The European Parliament’s rules add that chargers for devices that support ‘fast charging’ must charge devices of all brands at the same speed — ensuring that chargers of one brand don’t offer slow charging for devices of competing brands.

According to the parliament, the new mandate is expected to make life easier for EU residents by saving money, reducing the number of cords and chargers in their lives, and ultimately reducing electronic waste (e-waste). Disposed of and unused chargers account for about 11,000 tonnes of e-waste annually in Europe alone.

The European Parliament believes the decree will lead to “more re-use of chargers and will help consumers save up to 250 million euro a year on unnecessary charger purchases”.

“European consumers were frustrated for long with multiple chargers piling up with every new device. Now, they will be able to use a single charger for all their portable electronics,” European Parliament rapporteur Alex Agius Saliba said in a statement issued Tuesday.

“We are proud that laptops, e-readers, earbuds, keyboards, computer mice, and portable navigation devices are also included in addition to smartphones, tablets, digital cameras, headphones and headsets, handheld video game consoles and portable speakers,” the statement added.

The European Parliament includes elected representatives from the European Union’s 27 member states, including Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Cyprus, Sweden, and Hungary.

With the UK no longer being an EU member, a report by the BBC says the UK government is not “currently considering” taking a cue from the European Parliament’s call for a standard charging port.

Apple saw it coming?

That the European Parliament had been pushing for a standard charger is not news; tech giants like Apple had seen it coming.

UK-based tech market analyst firm CCS Insight had in a blog in 2020 said that Apple was lobbying against the proposal for a standard device charger across Europe.

The European Parliament itself has reiterated that it had been “continuously” calling for a common charger over the “past decade”, but a legislative proposal in this regard was tabled only in September 2021.

Apple had reacted to the proposal being tabled in the European Parliament last September by saying: “Strict regulation mandating just one type of connector stifles innovation rather than encouraging it, which in turn will harm consumers in Europe and around the world”.

But Ben Wood, chief analyst at CCS Insight, told news channel CGTN Europe that Apple was “quietly transitioning to USB-C”.

“On the Macbook series of computers, and also on the iPad Pro series of tablets, they are already using USB-C. My suspicion is that Apple have seen this coming…and probably Apple’s lobbyists have been in close discussions with the EU and it really wouldn’t surprise me to ultimately see them moving to USB-C on the iPhone,” he said.

Europe is an important market for Apple, and its 31.4 per cent market share in Europe is neck and neck with Samsung’s 32.2 per cent.

According to one report, Apple generated 5 billion pounds in revenue by selling chargers and earphones as separate products, not bundling them with the iPhone.

While there is no data to show Apple’s revenue solely from the sale of its charging cables, users have been raising the issue of the ‘Lightning cables’ not lasting long, for some time now.

In India, to connect your iPhone or iPad to speakers with regular 3.5mm audio ports, you need to buy a Lightning to 3.5mm audio cable for Rs 3,500; a Lightning cable that can connect to USB-C will cost you Rs 1,900.

On the other hand, you can buy a regular ‘Type C charger cable’ from any e-marketplace for as low as Rs 250-300.

(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)