Fake smartphones cost €45.3bn worldwide in 2015, says report

Counterfeit smartphones cost €45.3 billion ($48 billion) in 2015 as nearly 13% of legitimate sales were lost worldwide.

This is according to a report by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) in collaboration with the International Telecommunication Union .

In a statement, released today, the report’s authors estimated that 184 million fewer smartphones were sold by the legitimate industry in 2015 because of the presence of counterfeits.

The report analysed the number of smartphones sold in 90 countries in every region of the world, based on point-of-sale tracking of consumer purchases.

Around 1.3 billion smartphones were sold in 2015, meaning that approximately one out of every six people on the planet purchased a smartphone that year.

In the EU, 150 million devices were sold in 2015, one for every three EU citizens.

Fake smartphones made up 14 million units in 2015 in the EU, corresponding to 8.3% of the sector’s sales, or €4.2 billion.

China accounts for one third of the total global revenue lost in the smartphone sector, with 15.6% of sales being missed out on.

For other regions, 21.3% of sales were lost in Africa due to counterfeiting, 19.6% in Latin America, 17.4% in Arabic-speaking countries, 11.8% in the Asia-Pacific region and 7.6% in North America.

António Campinos, EUIPO executive director, said: “At the EUIPO, through our reporting and analysis, we are building a picture of how counterfeiting and piracy affect key economic sectors.”

He added that the estimate of nearly 13% of legitimate smartphone sales being lost globally in 2015 can “act as a powerful message for policy makers and all who work to combat counterfeiting worldwide”.

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