‘Will improve user safety’: 9 in 10 Indians want uniform mobile chargers, finds survey

Through its national survey across 303 districts, LocalCircles found that the majority of Indian consumers were unhappy that there were different charging cables for different devices.

A smartphone | Pixabay

New Delhi: A majority of Indians want uniform charging cables for their mobiles, and believe that manufacturers create devices with different charging cables to increase sales, a survey has found.

The study by advocacy platform LocalCircles was conducted after the European Commission recently mandated that all mobile devices support the USB-C as a single charging standard throughout EU nations by 2024.

Through respondents in 303 districts in the country, the organisation found that 9 out of 10 respondents (in over 11,000 participants) want standardised charging cables, while 7 out of 10 feel manufacturers create differences to boost business.

Feedback given underscored that standardisation was needed because of high prices and lack of availability of original brand accessories.

Consumers were often forced to buy generic charging cables as well as counterfeit cables available widely across shops or online. Such purchases can be harmful for both the device as well as the user, with many reports of fake mobile phone chargers causing blasts and fires, the study said.

Among the 23,500 responses, 43 percent were from tier 1 cities, 37 per cent from tier 2 and 20 per cent from tier 3, 4 and rural districts. LocalCircles found that the majority of Indian consumers were unhappy that smartphones and tablets have different charging cables for different devices and believed standardisation would drive down prices and make original cables more affordable.

Questions such as “How should charging cables for smartphones and tablets be standardised by the government?” received 11,796 responses, the majority of whom, 78 per cent, said, “All smartphones and tablets should have the same USB charging cable regardless of the company”. Only 6 percent of consumers were fine with the prevalent system.

The platform LocalCircles enables citizens and small businesses to elevate issues for policy and enforce intervention.
It enables the government to make policies surrounding the citizen, the group said.