While smartphones did not exist a little more than a decade ago, they now make the world go around. Smartphones have spread around the world faster than computers and laptops did. As per some estimates, there will be more than 2.80 billion smartphone users in the world by 2020. What’s more astonishing is that within the next three years, there will be approximately six billion smartphone devices in the world. Consequently, every person on earth will own a smartphone within a few years. But the sad part is that 20% of the smartphones traded across borders happen to be counterfeit.

Counterfeit Smartphones Are a Serious Issue

It would be wrong to think that counterfeit smartphones are just a matter of numbers. Yes, the sight is quite scary even when you look at the numbers. As per an estimate in 2015, the sales of counterfeit smartphones cost the industry a gigantic loss of $48 billion. China, Latin America, Asia Pacific and Middle East remain the favorite targets of fake smartphone sellers. But that’s not enough. Even in the US, 7.6% of the smartphones that customers purchased were counterfeit. Here is how these fake products are hurting the brands and end consumers worldwide.

Their Components Are of Cheap Materials

The biggest issue with counterfeit smartphones is that their components are cheap and of low quality. Such cheap materials cannot hold for too long before they start acting up. The initially low price might be a lure for the user but that’s where the sweetness ends. With the passage of time, these cheap components continue to act weird or stop working. The repairs cost customers a lot of money but the loop never ends. It’s a cheap phone initially but quite expensive in the long run.

An Antutu report revealed that a lot of the fake phones have quad-core processors for money-saving reasons. Nearly 60% of the fake phones offer only quad-core processors to the users. On the other hand, the authentic versions of these phones have much better processors. For example. Samsung S9 flagship phone uses Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 platform with Octal-Core Qualcomm® Kryo™ 385 CPUs.

They Can be Harmful to Users

What users don’t realize while buying counterfeit smartphones is that they can be dangerous to their health too. Radiation is a huge issue often making smartphones a controversial topic. However, big companies like Samsung, LG and Google have been taking measures to counter this problem.

If you look at the list of least radiation emitting phones, you will find quite a few Samsung phones with LG, Motorola and Google accompanying it here and there. However, cheap counterfeit product makers don’t care about these issues. Hence, conditions like cancer and mental illnesses can be a problem for those who use counterfeit phones.

They Deceive Users to Spend More

One of the biggest problems that users have to face when they buy counterfeit smartphones is deceptiveness. They might think they are buying a high-end phone of their favorite brand. However, they are only buying a clone made of cheap and low-quality materials. Reports from 2015 revealed that Samsung is the most copied phone brand among all other Android phones. Therefore, Samsung fans have to be even more cautious when purchasing their latest and favorite flagship.

They Hurt Brand Reputation

Counterfeit smartphones can ruin the reputation of large smartphone makers. When users buy fake products, they realize the quality of the components after some time. Moreover, counterfeit smartphones are not built to last for long. Their lives are short and they can stop working before the user realizes. This can lift the trust of the user from his/her favorite brand. Consequently, that hurts the revenue and sales, and cause the brand to slow down their innovation.

Bonafi Has the Solution for the Mobile Industry

Bonafi has come up with the best solution for smartphone industry. The NFC-enabled crypto-tags from Bonafi have the potential to help smartphone companies reclaim their lost profits. This tiny crypto-tag can store the information about the brand, retailer, and the owner of the phone. More importantly, it is a blockchain solution so all the data goes to the decentralized servers. Once a brand owner has installed the tag in the device, it can store the information of the entire supply chain.

The best thing is that users will have access to the Bonafi application. They can use the application to identify fake and real smartphones. Using the Bonafi App and by scanning the device with Crypto-TagTM implemented, they will know whether or not it has come from the authentic brand. Additionally, they will know if they are buying from an authorized retailer or not.