The European Union will make USB-C connectors mandatory for charging all mobile devices, Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton announced in a move likely to upset U.S. tech giant Apple.
Starting in 2024, rechargeable mobile phones and headsets, tablets, e-book readers, digital cameras, video game consoles, and portable speakers will be available in the member states with a single USB-C connector, regardless of manufacturer. And from 2026, laptops will also only be available with such a connector.
This means that customers will need a single universal cable to recharge all their portable devices.
EU consumers could save up to a quarter of a billion euros a year from not having to purchase different charging cables and save 11,000 tons of electronic waste a year, according to Brussels’ calculations.
“We have a deal on the common charger,” Thiery Breton said in a Brexit agreement, the EU ruling will apply to Northern Ireland but not to England, Wales or Scotland.
