03 | 03 | 2017

The Study of the EU Observatory on Infringements of Intellectual Property Rights on Counterfeit Smartphones Published

The European Observatory on Infringements of Intellectual Property Rights at the EUIPO published the eleventh study in the series of economic studies dealing with the impact of the infringement of intellectual property rights in individual industrial sectors in the European Union, originally titled: “The Economic Cost of IPR Infringement in the Smartphones Sector”.
 
The study was carried out in collaboration with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and this is the first study from the mentioned series dealing with counterfeiting in a specific industrial sector examining the problem on a global level.

The data gathered in this research show that 184 million smartphones fewer were sold worldwide in 2015, as a consequence of counterfeit units being present on the market. Legitimate producers thus lost approximately 12.9% of expected total sales or approximately 45.3 billion EUR.
 
Considering the data presented on the situation in this sector in the European Union (EU), the study shows that during 2015 there were 150 million smartphones sold in total in the EU marketplace. Counterfeit smartphones caused the loss of 8.3% of expected legitimate sales in this sector as there were 14 million smartphones fewer sold, or the lost sales across the EU account for approximately 4.2 billion EUR.

The study provides an insight into the data on the consequences of counterfeiting in the manufacturing sector of smartphones for all of the 28 Member States of the European Union, including Croatia as well (the data are shown in the table on page 10 of the study).

The study considers also other negative effects of counterfeiting in this sector, pointing out that here it is a matter of safety and health issues for consumers and issues related to the risks to the environment, because non-tested components and substances are used in the manufacturing of counterfeit devices. Furthermore, the quality and safety of mobile telecommunication services are being lowered, in addition to raising cybersecurity-related threats and creating a safety hazard for consumers in this area (by jeopardizing consumer privacy or their personal data and the safety of online banking services, by installing malware on mobile devices and the like).

The whole study is available at the following link.