The EU is introducing an energy label for phones, together with mandatory requirements for phones sold in the EU;

- 5 years of software updates (AFTER they stop selling the device in the EU)

- providing important hardware parts (during sale and for 7 years after), including free software (if needed), to every repair shop, within 5-10 business days

- batteries have to make 800 charging cycles and still be above 80% original capacity

And on top of that, phones and tablets need this energy label (which also includes a fall damage durability and repairability score), and abide by the above requirements, from 20 June 2025.

(https://energy-efficient-products.ec.europa.eu/product-list/smartphones-and-tablets_en)

Smartphones and Tablets

Product Energy Efficiency - Smartphones and Tablets. The 2023 regulations cover smartphones, feature phones, cordless phones and slate tablets. They do not apply to tablet computers, to products with flexible main display (roll-up), and to smartphones for high security communication. Energy labelling is foreseen only for smartphones and slate tablets.

Energy Efficient Products
@ShadowJonathan I wonder if that will hurt availability of the Lower end handsets, esp as a lot of the oems are at the mercy of if the chipset vendor can be bothered to support the soc
@Dragon I think prices in general will go up as these rules imply less sales (as individual phones last longer)
@ShadowJonathan
@prex @ShadowJonathan that and there’s a cost to supporting it for that long
@Dragon Possible that the smartphone market might just shrink to Apple, Samsung and Google? Not many companies have the resources to support their devices for that long, much less remain profitable while doing so.
@Abazigal @Dragon Very unlikely. People often forget that selling individual parts, access to schematics, extended warranties (which make more sense if the device has a long lifetime) etc. also adds revenue. It's more of a shift in how to make business, not how much.
Additionally stuff like this strengthens the second-hand market, which in turn causes more sales in repair parts, and so on… a lot of positive dynamics.