“I can not see any important progress over the subsequent few years,” says Stryjak. “Different firms have caught up just a little bit when it comes to making issues extra sturdy and sustainable and repairable, and with customers a key driver continues to be pricing and model. Fairphone could have its loyal fan base, however I can not see that considerably increasing anytime quickly.”
“No person Desires to Pull on a Lifeless Horse”
We put to Fairphone the thought it could should make do pootling together with this similar area of interest viewers. “I’ll say it’s nonsense, proper?” Fairphone CEO Raymond van Eck instructed WIRED.
“I’d by no means have began at an organization … if we really feel there isn’t any potential. No person needs to, as we are saying in Dutch, pull on a useless horse to see if it may 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 purpose 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 equivalent to a slider that places the telephone 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 life-style angle right here Fairphones have arguably not had earlier than. And fostering that was part of the rebrand the corporate kicked off at the start of 2025, which included binning the stiff-looking, all-caps firm emblem of outdated for one thing a bit extra pleasant.
The Fairphone Repair
Van Eck says it’s about “altering the order” of priorities, of placing the gadget 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 id,” he says. “It’s a bit much less paternalistic.”
The message is that Fairphone isn’t only a telephone 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.
“Once we are advertising and marketing the gadget, we do not lead with that. Not in our promoting campaigns, not in our communication, and likewise not the way in which that I want to convey it to you,” says Hatton. “It will probably develop into preachy in some markets. That message is resonating much less proper now. There are individuals which might be in panic but in addition utterly 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, principally to deal with the social and environmental points embedded within the electronics business,” 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 entails not having too daring a tackle issues like AI, which owing to its environmental impact could possibly be seen as antithetical to at least one a part of the outdated Fairphone message.
