SquareTrade aleading company in providing electronic device protection contracts, with more than 10 million customers internationally, today announced the data of a survey showing that Greeks have paid a total of 701,064,735 euros to repair or replace damaged smartphones!
It is striking that 40% of smartphone owners have experienced a breakdown or destruction of their device in the last two years. The repair time for the damage was more than 7 days for 30% of those affected. If one considers that these devices have become a valuable and necessary “helper” in the fast pace of modern life, this period of time seems very painful.
Unfortunately, damage is not always caused by the owner's fault, as 25% of accidents are caused by third parties and not by the device owners themselves.
Some notable findings of the study conducted by SquareTrade record that:
- 57% of smartphone accidents occur at home.
- 15% of owners forgot the device on the car roof.
- Pet owners are 47% more prone to device damage.
- 30% of owners of damaged devices are under 45 years old.
- iPhone owners are 23% more prone to accidents involving their device.
The recent research by SquareTrade, the unique one of its kind that has recorded data from the Greek market, shows that due to the often high expenses required for repairing damaged smartphones, many consumers often turn to «desperation» solutions. For example, 8% of owners in Greece use a device with a broken screen.
Sources and methodology of the research
Data sources:
- European accident research on smartphones by SquareTrade. Conducted online in August 2014 with the support of the research firms ResearchNow and Qualtrics. Data were collected from more than 13,000 smartphone owners across Europe and Scandinavia.
- Euro exchange rates were obtained from Bloomberg.com on 14/08/2014.
- Deloitte Global Mobile Consumer Survey, July 2013.
- The World Factbook, accessible via CIA.gov.
- Our Mobile Planet Smartphone Research, Google 2013.
- GSMA Intelligence.
Source: e-pcmag.gr
