Common charging port: stakeholders to meet govt officials today

Smartphone companies and industry organisations will be meeting with officials in the ministry of consumer affairs on Wednesday to explore the option of having a common charging port for all electronic devices, in line with Europe. The move will benefit consumers at large but lead to higher costs for feature phone makers and impact smartphone major Apple, say experts.

The government is exploring the option of having a single charging port – USB Type-C – across all mobile devices including laptops, smartphones, feature phones, and IoT (internet of Things) devices, according to industry executives.

Industry executives who will be attending the meeting will apprise the government of the pros and cons of the move.

The move will benefit the consumers the most, as at present, they have to carry multiple charging cables for the mobile devices they own. There are separate charging cables for laptops, Apple devices and Android smartphones, which often leads consumers looking for the specific chargers when the devices run out of charge.

However, the device manufacturers will have a hard time implementing a common standard, as the charging standards are different for each. The move will not impact Android smartphones as much, since most Android smartphones use USB-C ports for charging. However, feature phones which rely on the micro-USB standard, budget and high-end gaming laptops, which rely on proprietary charging standards to drive power to their devices, as well as the IoT devices, which rely on legacy ports, will have to change their industrial and mechanical designs to accommodate the move.