Sony to join movement to sell smartphones without chargers

LONDON, May 28 (UPI) -- Sony says it will join other smartphone makers in selling phones without a charger to curb the increasing numbers lying unused in British households.

The Japanese company will sell its Xperia SP handset on Britain's O2 network without a charger when it launches this month, following Nokia and HTC's announcements they would sell new phones with a USB cable only, The Daily Telegraph reported Tuesday.

While an estimated 70 percent of mobile phone users have a handset that can be charged with a USB cable attached to a computer, 30 million smartphones a year are still sold with a wall charger included.

Carrier O2 said 82 percent of customers offered the choice of an HTC phone without a charger opted to use the existing units they had at home or a USB cable.

"As an industry, we have a duty to our customers to behave in a way that is environmentally responsible, making our businesses leaders in sustainability," O2 head Ronan Dunne said.

"Taking chargers out of the box is a small change that has a huge environmental benefit -- cutting down not just on waste, but also the environmental costs of transport, storage and component manufacture," he said.

"We have trialed this scheme with two major handset launches and have been able to show our partners that consumers are ready to buy phones without the chargers -- if the environmental benefits are explained clearly to them," he told the Telegraph.