Chinese Government Demands USB Access Mobile Phone Chargers

The Chinese government is now demanding that all future mobile phones manufactured - regardless of brand - feature a standard USB port used for both charging and data transfer; that is meant to cut down the costs for both users and manufacturers as well as eliminate waste within the country.

There are several advantages to this. First, the development of mobile phone chargers of this type will allow the users to keep just one charger for every mobile phone they own instead of several mobile phone chargers, which is both space and money saving.

Another advantage would be that not only does the user need just one charger, but that single charger also replaces the data cables one would need for data transfer. So basically you'd have a charger and data cable that would work with any mobile phone, all-in-one.

And when stopping to consider that nearly 100 million people in China replace their mobile phone annually, that means that a lot of old chargers are thrown away. Reducing the number of mobile phone chargers needed thus also reduces the quantity of chargers that are being disposed of along with the old mobile phones. In fact, the new standard would also be saving an estimated 2.4 billion yuan ($306 million a year).

Apparently, no deadline has been set so far, thus allowing charger makers to adjust their production, and mobile phone manufacturers to change their sales strategies.

South Korea has already demanded almost a year ago that handsets sold have standardized charging and data cable ports, but China's following South Korea's lead could prove to be a little bit more difficult, as foreign vendors don't sell as large a number of devices on the South Korean market as in China.