Fairphone is a company in the Netherlands that creates smartphones and headphones. It works to reduce harm to the environment and ethical issues by using materials that are recycled, fairtrade, and conflict-free. The company ensures fair working conditions for all employees and suppliers. It also helps users repair their devices easily by designing phones with separate parts and offering replacement pieces. As of June 2025, Fairphone's newest smartphone is the Fairphone 6. This phone is designed to be easy to repair and has a modular structure. The company plans to provide seven years of Android operating system updates, eight years of security patches, and a five-year warranty for this model.
Fairphone has been called "the most ethical smartphone in the world" by the British magazine Ethical Consumer, which gave it a score of 98 out of 100 possible points.
History
Fairphone was started in January 2013 by Bas van Abel, Tessa Wernink, and Miquel Ballester as a company that focuses on social responsibility. Before becoming a company, it existed as a campaign for two and a half years.
In April 2015, the company officially became a B Corporation.
Since version two, the Fairphone is made in Suzhou, China, by Hi-P International Limited.
In November 2021, the Fairphone 4 was released.
As of February 2022, Fairphone had sold about 400,000 devices.
In 2023, a group of investors who focus on making a positive impact, including new shareholders Invest-NL, the ABN AMRO Sustainable Impact Fund, and existing shareholder Quadia with its Regenero Impact Fund, invested €49 million in Fairphone.
Corporate affairs
Since the Fairphone 3 was introduced in 2019, Fairphone has reported growing annual sales each year. The company sold more than 100,000 units in both 2022 and 2023. Its highest sales year to date was 2022, with 115,681 units sold. In 2024, sales reached 103,053 units, slightly exceeding the company's goal of 100,000 units.
Fairphone's revenue increased from €10.8 million in 2018 to €58.9 million in 2022. However, in 2023, the company had negative earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) of €14.3 million, even though its revenue was €54.8 million. In 2024, Fairphone became profitable again, with positive EBITDA of €1.7 million on revenue of €54.4 million.
Social impact and competitors
The phone is designed to be easy to take apart and fix, allowing users to repair and personalize it. This aligns with the right to repair principles, which support user control over device maintenance. The company states that extending a phone’s lifespan by two years can reduce CO₂ emissions by 30%.
The gold and silver in Fairphone 4 carry the Fairtrade label, meaning they are sourced from mines that do not fund conflicts. The company offers a 5-year warranty and long-term support for software updates and replacement parts. In 2017, Fairphone co-founder Bas van Abel noted that creating a completely fair phone was not yet possible, stating that the company’s phones are "fairer" rather than fully fair.
In an interview with Will Georgi, Fairphone co-founder Tessa Wernink said:
A survey by Franziska Verna Haucke in the Journal of Cleaner Production found:
Shiftphone is another small company that makes sustainable mobile phones. It also created a modular smartphone. Shiftphone’s founder believes that working with Fairphone could help influence larger competitors in the industry.
Recognition and certifications
In 2016, Bas van Abel, who was the co-founder and first CEO of Fairphone, was one of three winners of the German Environmental Prize.
The Fairphone 4 became one of the first smartphones to receive the TCO Certified label in 2021. Before this, the company had stated that its phones met higher standards than those required by the TCO Certified program. A 2015 study by the Südwind Association, the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations, and the GoodElectronics Network found that the Fairphone 1 met more environmental and social standards than the TCO Certified label itself.
Fairphone also received three Platinum ratings from EcoVadis in a row. In one year, the company scored 88 out of 100 in a system that evaluates businesses based on four categories related to environmental and social performance. This score placed Fairphone in the top 1% of all businesses rated by EcoVadis worldwide.
Operating systems
Fairphones can use different operating systems, such as CalyxOS, DivestOS, /e/, iodéOS, LineageOS, Ubuntu Touch, and others. Murena, which is connected to the /e/ foundation, sells Fairphones with /e/ already installed and provides a warranty for these devices. As of February 2025, the official support from /e/ for Fairphones FP3, FP4, and FP5 is based on Android 13.