How many FP2s need to be sold to stay in business?

Dear all,

Lately I got the information that Fairphone sold 40.000 FP2’s in May 2016. This is of course good news and shows that more and more people are becoming aware and interested in the Fairphone product/philosophy (I also consider myself a “believer” #Halleluja).

However, the goal of selling 150k FP2’s by the end of 2016 seems quite challenging :cold_sweat: compared to 40k sold FP2’s in May 2016 (the latest amounts of sold FP2’s hasn’t been officially communicated (yet?)).

So I started wondering: how many FP2’s need really to be sold by the end of 2016 in order for Fairphone to stay in business?

FYI:
I asked this question to Fairphone directly first at 29.05.2016. Fairphone “answered” 02.08.2016:

Hi,
Thank you for your message and interest in Fairphone! For press requests, please contact our PR team through our website.
Thanks in advance,
Kind regards
.

Not exactly the answer I expected #LOL :upside_down:. That’s why I now dropped my question into the “wild” (read: FP-community :wink:), just to share some food for thought.

Cya!

I believe the 150k goal included the prospect to expand to markets outside Europe in 2016, which probably won’t happen just yet. Expanding the market is associated with more expenses so I’d guess if they don’t expand they won’t have to sell as much to cover their expenses.
Also goals are usually set much higher than the minimum you need to reach.

So in short: I have no idea how much they need to sell, but I’m not worried. :slight_smile:

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I assume that FP currently does not answer questions that could affect their business. All you get is a friendly “No, but maybe we will answer it later.” … answer. Or none. But maybe you can try the next AMA with Fairphone’s CTO Olivier Hebert.

I try to gather questions here.

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I don’t think it’s a question of them staying in business at the moment. If you look at the price breakdown they’ve published - which, admittedly, is based upon the sale of 140K FP2s - they’ve accounted pretty well for every expense they have, including a few euros as buffer on each phone.

However, if they could sell a larger number of FPs, they could a) reduce their prices a bit, which would likely encourage many more customers to buy a FP, since many have mentioned the price as being an issue for them, and b) have more influence/more access/more possibilities in affecting their supply chain. I think at some point they mentioned that, for example, it’s pretty hard to order some components in quantities less than 100K and I remember that for the FP1, they had to actually work together with some other companies who agreed to order a little extra for them (for example for the display of the FP1, which I believe was ordered by LG (?)).

Of course, they’re also starting to sell FPs through some local providers, such as 1&1 in Germany, T-Mobile in Austria, Phone Co-Op in UK, etc. I’m not sure how this works for them exactly - do the providers buy one large shipment of FPs all at once and pay for them immediately, or do they buy FPs continuously as they sell them? Maybe someone else knows, but this would certainly also have an impact on the numbers they’re selling since May.

I’ve also asked a number of times, though, and also wish we could get an updated statistic on how much they’ve sold now and what the trend looks like (is it the same each month, or going up/down?)…(@Douwe…?)

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I’ve never heard of this. Do you remember the source?

Not off the top of my head, but I’ll see if I can find it again. Probably won’t happen until next week though, since I think it’s in a paper that I have at my office - early weekend this week :wink:

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Problem is, the longer it takes to sell the phones the more “obsolete” they become against other phones. EG, a lot now have super HD screens and many run Android 6, with 7 coming along before long. It will get harder to sell them for the same price as the tech drops behind market expectations. Hope they can stay in there … our warranties for one thing!

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Hey @Stefan, I found the source: Samsung | TechRepublic

About a third of the way down, it says:

“(…) That’s not the only way that Fairphone’s larger competitors made
the company’s life easier, however. Due to the size of Fairphone’s
production batches, it had to rely on other mobile makers placing
similar orders to get its own device made. Fairphone’s screens, made by LG, come via
one of its suppliers who has to place a minimum order of 100,000 to get
the screens delivered. Fairphone’s few thousand wouldn’t make much of a
dent in that, so it has to hope that another handset maker takes a shine
to those screens at the same time, too.”

I realize now, though, that it may not actually have been LG who ordered the extras. It says that the screens were made by LG, but that they “come via one of its suppliers” and later something about hoping that “another handset maker” orders those screens at a similar time. Looking at it again, I think it’s not entirely clear who ordered the extra screens, but certainly someone did for the FP1.

I found the entire article pretty worthwhile reading, by the way :slight_smile:

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…wonder how many FP2’s have been sold now, approaching the end of the year…

** chinrub **

Anyone?

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Counter on the website stays at 112.000, which would make it 52.000 FP2.

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Hopefully an increasing amount of people will choose for fair, sustainable and durable above the newest gadgets. Of course there is a huge problem if the latest Android version that works well on a phone is not supported and updated anymore. I am perfectly satisfied and happy with my FP1 first edition, but a little worried if I will be able to keep on using it for many years to come, cause of the software becoming obsolete. I wish I had the capacity to work out a system that would tackle this problem.
It is so anoying knowing that people keep buying new phones, even people who do not particularly want to have the newest gadget. Often they find their phone is getting too slow, or the battery brakes down and isn’t replacapble (IPhone :-z).
We need to help raise awareness!
And we need to keep supporting Fairphone!
And we need to support any initiative in the same direction!

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It’s 125.000 according to Fairphone team member Fabian in this online chat. So to date more FP2s have been sold than FP1!!! That’s impressing in my opinion! From now on Fairphone can show that they have made a progress from FP1 to FP2 (at least in terms of raising awareness).

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It’s even 130,000 now according to the latest blog post:

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