No more gift charger in the box, you will have to buy it in addition to your smartphone

As of December 28, you should no longer find a charger in the box of a new smartphone. After headphones, charging blocks are about to disappear from the range of accessories supplied by default with phones. If Apple had launched the movement for purposes presented as “ecological”, it was then followed by other manufacturers, such as Samsung, Google, OnePlus, and very recently Xiaomi. The Chinese brand launched last September “ its very first smartphones without a charger », the 14T and 14T Pro.

And this is not surprising: the disappearance of “tied selling” of the phone with its charging accessory is about to become widespread : a change which results in part – and only in part – from the transposition into French law of the so-called USB-C directive of 2022, by the order and decree of December 2023.

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In theory, the choice of with or without charger

What do these texts change? Contrary to what one might think, the new regulations do not require the sale of smartphones without a charger. But it requires that consumers have the choice between buying the smartphone with a charger and buying the smartphone without a charging block.

Because the whole objective of the text, which imposes the USB-C port on all phones, is to limit the number of chargers in our drawers. The idea? Allowing consumers to not have to order a power supply, if they already have one, which will reduce our electronic waste.

Concretely, sellers of (new) smartphones will be able, for devices placed on the French market after December 28:

offer smartphones without including chargers, by clearly indicating this on the packaging and the online sales site, with supporting pictograms;
offer devices with chargers (what is called tied selling); pictogram also in support;
offer the sale of charger alone.

This is to prevent the consumer from ending up with a smartphone without a charging block or without the right charger, if the phone is supplied without one. “CIt’s a bit like the remote-controlled car you get for Christmas, but which doesn’t have batteries. There, it must be clear to the consumer, if they need to buy the charger, they must be able to add it directly to the basket if they wish. Or if he already has three or four chargers in the drawers at home, he doesn’t need them, he doesn’t buy them », summarizes Olivier Vongxay, Mobile Business Manager at Asus France.

In practice: smartphones without charger, and the charger extra

But in reality, consumers should be faced with two options: either buy their smartphone without a charger, or buy the same smartphone and then an accessory, the charger, at extra cost.

The majority of manufacturers we interviewed explained to us that for reasons of industrial processes and logistics, there should no longer be tied selling. Only two packaging and not three will be planned: one for the smartphone sold alone, and the other for the charger. Exit the famous box where both were present, even if it is possible that temporary offers offer the smartphone with its charger for a limited time.

Which means that there will not be just one box as was still the case today for some brands, but two boxes, and perhaps two shipments, when purchasing a smartphone with charger . Result, there should be extra cardboard, in the event of purchasing the smartphone and power supply combo: a point that the legislators had not necessarily anticipated, but which will certainly be a lesser evil compared to the systematic presence of a charger in smartphone boxes.

At Oppo France, David Chauvaud, marketing product manager, confirms that “ all boxes are passed without a charger, which effectively reduces the size of packaging and products, and also reduces the quantity of pallets that are sent ».

In this equation, is the consumer the winner?

Without the charger, can the consumer hope to pay less for their smartphone? Not really. “ We can say that since we remove an element, it will cost less. But that’s not how the calculations are done. It’s not the charger in a box that really impacts the price of the product », explains to us Guillaume Berlemont, the France marketing director of Xiaomi.

« In the manufacture of a smartphone, the charger represents a minimal cost “, he adds, recognizing that if the measure goes in the direction of history – the protection of the environment – the brand “ loses a commercial advantage: the fact of being able to include a specific charger for fast charging”… due to the directive, but above all the logistical requirements of smartphone manufacturers.

And the consumer? “He also loses a little advantage of having a new charger in his box », Continues the Xiaomi marketing manager – an often faster charger, for which he will now have to pay extra. This surplus which is a drain on the wallet should push some people to give up on this additional purchase… enough to reduce, in the end, the purchase and the number of charging devices?