If you’ve recently purchased a smartphone, you’d likely consider it to be an extremely crucial and sizable investment with all things having been considered and taken into account. The prospect of the phone getting damaged is likely something that would end up causing you no small amount of stress, so as a result of the fact that this is the case, Allstate Protection Plans/SquareTrade just released the most common ways in which smartphones were damaged in 2023.
The first thing to note about this data is that 78 million smartphone users said their phones were damaged in the US in 2023. That’s a steep decrease from the 87 million that said the same in 2020, but in spite of the fact that this is the case, the amount of money that they spent on getting their phones repaired increased a fair bit. In 2018, smartphone owners spent a total of $3.4 billion on phone repairs. This number jumped to a staggering $8.3 billion in 2023.
There was a time when water damage was the single biggest thing that people needed to be concerned about as far as their smartphones were concerned. With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that it’s no longer the leading cause of damage to smartphones. That dubious honor now belongs to damaged screens, with 67% of people whose smartphones were damaged reporting this. This is the single biggest issue by far, with WiFi or connectivity issues coming in at a distant second with 28%.
Screens in general appear to be problematic to a great extent, with 24% reporting issues with their touchscreens. Loose or damaged charging ports were reported by 22% of users, and then finally water damage came in fifth with 21%. It was equalled by battery problems which were also reported by 21% of users, and chipped sides cleared the 20% mark as well.
49% of the people that responded to this survey stated that they wouldn’t fix their phone as soon as it got damaged, with 39% of these people pointing to the cost. 21% also said that they wouldn’t want to forego using their devices for an extended period of time, 12% voiced concerns about it ending up in a landfill.
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The first thing to note about this data is that 78 million smartphone users said their phones were damaged in the US in 2023. That’s a steep decrease from the 87 million that said the same in 2020, but in spite of the fact that this is the case, the amount of money that they spent on getting their phones repaired increased a fair bit. In 2018, smartphone owners spent a total of $3.4 billion on phone repairs. This number jumped to a staggering $8.3 billion in 2023.
There was a time when water damage was the single biggest thing that people needed to be concerned about as far as their smartphones were concerned. With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that it’s no longer the leading cause of damage to smartphones. That dubious honor now belongs to damaged screens, with 67% of people whose smartphones were damaged reporting this. This is the single biggest issue by far, with WiFi or connectivity issues coming in at a distant second with 28%.
Screens in general appear to be problematic to a great extent, with 24% reporting issues with their touchscreens. Loose or damaged charging ports were reported by 22% of users, and then finally water damage came in fifth with 21%. It was equalled by battery problems which were also reported by 21% of users, and chipped sides cleared the 20% mark as well.
49% of the people that responded to this survey stated that they wouldn’t fix their phone as soon as it got damaged, with 39% of these people pointing to the cost. 21% also said that they wouldn’t want to forego using their devices for an extended period of time, 12% voiced concerns about it ending up in a landfill.
