Market Trends in Smartphone Design and Reliability Testing

Over the past decade, smartphones have become ubiquitous. Annual shipments have increased from 305 million units in 2010 to 1.37 billion units in 2019. This makes smartphones a highly relevant product group from a sustainability point of view. This paper firstly investigates market trends in smartphone design features over the past decade, both in terms of the evolution of technical specifications and design aspects that are relevant for material efficiency, particularly reparability and dismantlability. Secondly, reliability testing carried out by ICRT on 108 smartphone models are analysed. Both analysis combined provide a factual data base on which the development of the product group in present, past, and future, can be evaluated in the framework of a sustainable development.