Android Phone Repairs Cost Carriers Billions

Repairs to Android phones cost wireless operators billions, revealing a potential downside to the rapid expansion of Google's mobile operating system. A study by wireless services firm Wireless Dat Service, or WDS, found hardware failures are more common on Android devices than on Apple's iPhone or Research in Motion's BlackBerry. Hardware breakdowns on Android phones are costing carriers $2 billion per year as they struggle to keep up with issues stemming from Android's rapid growth. Apple and RIM manufacture the devices powered by their operating systems, gaining a measure of control over the components used in them. In contrast, Android is open-source software and can be installed on a wide range of devices from varied manufacturers. This widespread availability gives Android an advantage, helping it launch devices powered by the OS into the top spot in the competitive smartphone market. Earlier this year, Google announced over 500,000 Android devices are activated daily. However, not all those devices are necessarily top-of-the-line. The ability to install Android on low-cost phones may have helped Google attract both manufacturers and consumers to become the dominant smartphone platform, but it may also contribute to a high incidence of hardware problems. WDS analyzed more than 600,000 technical support calls handled by its teams worldwide, revealing 14 percent of calls regarding Android devices are hardware-related, as opposed to 11 percent for Windows phones, 7 percent for iOS and 6 percent for RIM's BlackBerry. The open nature of Android's software means a range of devices running different versions of Android may be in the market at any given moment, with no guarantee devices are getting updated, or are even able to be updated, with the latest software. This fragmentation presents an ongoing problem for Google, leading the Mountain View, Calif.-based company to forge partnerships with major handset makers and carriers in an attempt to ensure consistency across Android products. However, these measures only work "if hardware allows," bringing to light the problems uncovered in the WDS study. Consumers with older, inferior smartphones attempting to upgrade to the latest version of Android may render their hardware unusable. This leads to thousands of calls to carriers, resulting in billions of dollars' worth of returns and repairs. WDS said it did not find any problems in the Android platform itself. "Its openness has enabled the ecosystem to grow to a phenomenal size, at a phenomenal rate, and it's this success that is proving challenging," said Tim Deluca-Smith, vice president of marketing at WDS. Android continues to battle fragmentation issues and fight to retain market dominance, but if consumers get too frustrated with broken Android devices, Google may find itself combating another problem as well: customer churn. This post originally appeared at Mobiledia.