“I am unable to see any important progress over the following few years,” says Stryjak. “Different firms have caught up a bit bit by way of making issues extra sturdy and sustainable and repairable, and with shoppers a key driver continues to be pricing and model. Fairphone may have its loyal fan base, however I am unable to see that considerably increasing anytime quickly.”
“No person Needs to Pull on a Lifeless Horse”
We put to Fairphone the thought it might must make do pootling together with this identical area of interest viewers. “I’ll say it’s nonsense, proper?” Fairphone CEO Raymond van Eck advised WIRED.
“I’d by no means have began at an organization … if we really feel there is no such thing as a potential. No person desires to, as we are saying in Dutch, pull on a useless horse to see if it’ll stroll.” Fairphone relies in Amsterdam, and van Eck was appointed CEO in August 2024.
“Within the subsequent 5 years, we actually have the intention to quadruple our addressable market and to take our fair proportion of that,” says van Eck. The corporate has additionally set a aim of “double digit progress” only for this yr. The plain query: how?
A part of Fairphone’s technique is in fact seen within the Fairphone 6 itself. It has some neat concepts reminiscent of a slider that places the cellphone into an Necessities mode. This pares again the interface that will help you get away from the distractions of, for instance, social media.
There’s a breezy way of life angle right here Fairphones have arguably not had earlier than. And fostering that was part of the rebrand the corporate kicked off in the beginning of 2025, which included binning the stiff-looking, all-caps firm brand of previous for one thing a bit extra pleasant.
The Fairphone Repair
Van Eck says it’s about “altering the order” of priorities, of placing the system itself at pole place somewhat than the ethics it represents. “Ultimately, it is also clarifying Fairphone’s imaginative and prescient, as a result of the rebrand gave us a extra pleasant, extra approachable identification,” he says. “It’s a bit much less paternalistic.”
The message is that Fairphone isn’t only a cellphone for eco warriors. And chief expertise officer Chandler Elizabeth Hatton means that picture, that basic Fairphone message, could have truly proved off-putting for some.
“After we are advertising and marketing the system, we do not lead with that. Not in our promoting campaigns, not in our communication, and in addition not the way in which that I want to convey it to you,” says Hatton. “It could turn out to be preachy in some markets. That message is resonating much less proper now. There are folks which can be in panic but in addition fully exhausted by the local weather disaster or questions of ethics.”
So … is it time to de-woke Fairphone? That appears too blunt an interpretation, as a result of there’s no indication that Fairphone plans to dilute its requirements. It’s simply not going to harp on about them fairly as overtly.
Turning Down the Quantity
“Fairphone was based 12 years in the past, mainly to deal with the social and environmental points embedded within the electronics trade,” says Van Eck. “What we additionally noticed is that Fairphone was fairly located round telling that story … which meant that the Fairphone was for a lesser addressable market.”
This new strategy additionally includes not having too daring a tackle issues like AI, which owing to its environmental influence might be seen as antithetical to at least one a part of the previous Fairphone message.
