New USB-C Rule will Not be Applicable to Some Gadgets

If you still own a smartphone or any electronic item that uses a USB Type-C port and you are sitting there confused about what you’d do after the government mandate that is being discussed in India, we are here to clarify some of those doubts for you.

According to the reports, India will likely exclude all the feature phones, hearables, and wearables from the USB type-C mandate that the Indian government is going to make mandatory from March 2025 as per the instructions overlayed by the EU.

Further highlighting this subject, an official reported on the concern saying that this exemption was introduced after a lot of concerns rose from the industry leaders and manufacturers who expressed their concerns about bearing a certain degree of losses, especially concerning the input costs following this mandate.

The senior official further highlights the fact saying that India is a leading market for feature phones that don’t involve the use of Type-C USB chargers. Besides that, India is also a leading market for hearables and wearables that currently use different USB charging cables.

This marks a drastic difference from the EU where most smartphone users go for iPhones instead of the latest Android devices. To address this concern, the Indian government has discussed bringing together a sub-committee to further discuss bringing out a common charger for both the hearables and wearables by 2025.

According to the mandate issued by the EU, all smartphones (including iPhones) should be integrated with a common USB Type-C charger effective from December 28, 2024. The laptops will get a little bit more time until 2026.

Hearing this new mandate, India has agreed to comply with this new mandate but will provide an additional 3-4 months extra to the industry leaders and manufacturers to get everything in order.

Besides smartphones, even laptop manufacturers and brands will now have to include a type-C USB charging port in all the new and upcoming laptop models. For this, the brands have suggested that it will take a bit more time, hence the 2026 timeline for the laptop brands.

As for the available reports as of now, around 98% of the world’s Android smartphones currently use USB Type-C charging ports while the iPhones use the lightning port. 

How the brands come together to comply with this mandate is something we’d have to look forward to in the upcoming years.