Fairphone

I meet again Miquel Ballester twelve years later. I interviewed him in 2013: I started my career in Xataka, and he did the same in Fairphonea company he officially co-founded a few months earlier with a singular goal: “to create the world’s first fully fair smartphone.” Many things have changed since then. We both already have gray hair, and we have both experienced from our side of the industry how smartphones have conquered the world and then become a standard and everyday product that has one difficulty: that of being truly differentiating. A different mobile in everything. Including your materials But at Fairphone they have managed to do precisely that: differentiate themselves. Your focus is totally different to that of the rest of the manufacturers, and although that part of the original mission has not changed, it has also expanded. According to Ballester, “it has always been a tool,” because Fairphone’s intention was to “change the industry from within.” Fairphone (Gen. 6). In fact, he explains, “we could have made our way by remaining an NGO or getting into the industry in another way, perhaps inspiring other companies and convincing them that there was a market for fair electronics.” Instead they decided to apply the old “if you want something well done you have to do it yourself”, and got to work. This is how the original Fairphone was born and how the others have emerged. Thus, the Fairphone commitment to conflict-free minerals remains one of the hallmarks of its devices. Miquel Ballester confirms that the situation has improved, in part, thanks to legislative changes such as those that have emerged in Europe. “Monitoring and reporting that reveals where certain materials come from, but conflict-free minerals are only one part” of the equation, he points out. The company has scaled its commitment from the initial 4 supply chains to 23 monitored chains, with the goal of half of its materials coming from fair or recycled sources. The new Fairphone (Gen. 6) is the demonstration of that work: more than 50% of the weight of its materials corresponds to fair or recycled materials (that percentage was 42% in the Fairphone 5). This direct management of the chain is vital, especially when deal with rare earthswhose shortage global affects the entire industry. Ballester clarifies that, although they notice the impact on the price, the one directly affected by the volume and wait challenges is the company that manufactures the component, not always the final assembler. Long live modularity and repairability If there is one thing that defines Fairphone, it is its radical approach to repairability and modularitysomething they have successfully extended beyond phones, as evidenced by their repairable headphones, the amazing Fairbuds. Miquel Ballester, Head of Product at Fairphone. That philosophy raises an inevitable question: “Does being repairable and modular involve too many sacrifices?” According to Ballester, “In Generation 6 we are very proud of the balance we have achieved between performance, modularity and sustainability. We have had to say no to many things, but they have all been good strategic decisions that went in one direction: getting a balanced phone for the type of consumer and the type of market we are in.” It is in these decisions that it has been decided, for example, whether to opt for one or another cutting-edge components. We have an example in the ultra-wide-angle sensor, which has lowered its resolution which “has nothing to do with modularity”, but rather to seek a balance and a good balance of specifications. But of course, that philosophy imposes certain criteria. Thus, this engineer and entrepreneur explains to us, “modularity imposes design and size restrictions“. For example, to ensure a large and serviceable battery, the device had to be “a few millimeters thicker” (9.6 mm in the case of the Fairphone (Gen. 6)). Despite this, Ballester emphasizes that this modularity cannot compromise the design too much. In the end, the mobile phone needs to “work and be attractive. It is super important that when a person goes to a store – we are in 20 operators throughout Europe – they see a terminal with a good design.” All that history and experience has allowed them to polish once again a design that remains remarkable but that at the same time includes a battery of decent capacity (4,415 mAh) that is also interchangeable/repairable. The result for him and his team is remarkable: “I’m very proud of the design we’ve achieved with the Fairphone (Gen. 6). It feels good in hand, is light, maintains balance and has a larger screen than the Fairphone 5, which was one of the key goals we had.” In fact, we asked Ballester about past mistakes that they learned from, and he precisely alluded to the predecessor of this mobile. “The Fairphone 5 is a very good device, but it is also I tried to do many things. With the Fairphone (Gen. 6) we were able to make stricter decisions about what should be included and what not, and thanks to that we were able to launch it at a more affordable price.” The Fairphone (Gen. 6), like its predecessors, allows you to enjoy an interchangeable battery, a feature that was previously common and is no longer so. Long live repairable cell phones. It’s true: the Fairphone 5 was launched at 699 euros, while the Fairphone (Gen. 6) has a retail price of 599 euros, a notable difference especially considering that it is normal for everything to go up in price, not go down. For him, in fact, what happened with the Fairphone 5 led to a very important learning experience. “The 5 responded to a certain moment in the company, there was uncertainty, we did not want to close doors. With Gen. 6 we have taken another path even knowing that perhaps we were leaving things behind. You can’t try to please everyone because in the end you don’t make anyone happy.“. Fairphone in Spain and how to compete with giants At Fairphone … Read more