Mobile phone subscribers in the UK have spent around £4.6 billion (€5.8 billion) on repairs to their mobile phones over the past two years, in what will come as a timely cautionary tale to those who have just paid several hundreds of pounds, euros or dollars for a sparkling new iPhone 6.
According to a study by SquareTrade, which has something of a vested interest here given that it offers a global protection plan for phones, this equates to around £78 per head and also puts Britain top of the European league table for repair costs to mobile devices. Europe-wide losses over the last seven years' data amount to €34 billion, according to SquareTrade data.
More than a third (37 per cent) of British smartphone users have damaged their smartphone in the last two years and it seems around 7 per cent of iPhone screens in the UK are cracked or damaged. What's more, close to half of all owners of damaged phones find the device functions are impaired.
SquareTrade also regularly updates a "Breakability Index" based on tests that replicate common scenarios in which phones are damaged by owners. The company rates the phones on a 10-point durability scale, with 10 signifying the highest risk.
Latest tests of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus assessed the new phones against eight criteria: size, weight, panel strength (front and back), a drop test, a slide test, a 'gripability' test and a water resistance test. Overall, the company said Apple's iPhone 6 scored the best at 4 (the best score yet achieved); the iPhone 6 Plus scored a 5; the iPhone 5s a 6; and Samsung Galaxy S5 a 6.5.
For more:
- see this SquareTrade release
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