Ten of the world's biggest mobile phone today responded to pressure from the European Commission by announcing that they will bring out a universal mobile-phone charger next year, ending the need to buy different chargers for different makes of phone.
The voluntary decision was welcomed by Günter Verheugen, the European commissioner for enterprise, to whom the companies today presented their memorandum of understanding.
Verheugen, who had threatened to bring in legislation forcing companies to harmonise their chargers, said that the new charger standard, had a “very good chance” of becoming a global standard. He said that the EU would discuss the standard, which will be based on a universal serial bus (USB), with its international trading partners, including the US, China and India.
The ten companies – Apple, LG, Motorola, NEC, Nokia, Qualcomm, Research in Motion, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Texas Instruments – account for 90% of all mobile phones sold in the EU.
The new standard will apply to all data-enabled phones. Verheugen said that there are 400 million phones in use in the EU and that 180 million new handsets are bought every year. He said that, on that basis, the majority of phones would be using the new charger standard within three years of its launch.
The industry's voluntary decision to embrace a common standard would therefore bring change much more quickly than new legislation would, he said.
