“I can’t see any significant growth over the next few years,” says Stryjak. “Other companies have caught up a little bit in terms of making things more durable and sustainable and repairable, and with consumers a key driver is still pricing and brand. Fairphone will have its loyal fan base, but I can’t see that significantly expanding anytime soon.”
“Nobody Wants to Pull on a Dead Horse”
We put to Fairphone the idea it may have to make do pootling along with this same niche audience. “I will say it’s nonsense, right?” Fairphone CEO Raymond van Eck told WIRED.
“I would never have started at a company … if we feel there is no potential. Nobody wants to, as we say in Dutch, pull on a dead horse to see if it’s going to walk.” Fairphone is based in Amsterdam, and van Eck was appointed CEO in August 2024.
“In the next five years, we really have the intention to quadruple our addressable market and to take our fair share of that,” says van Eck. The company has also set a goal of “double digit growth” just for this year. The obvious question: how?
Part of Fairphone’s strategy is of course seen in the Fairphone 6 itself. It has some neat ideas such as a slider that puts the phone into an Essentials mode. This pares back the interface to help you get away from the distractions of, for example, social media.
There’s a breezy lifestyle angle here Fairphones have arguably not had before. And fostering that was a part of the rebrand the company kicked off at the beginning of 2025, which included binning the stiff-looking, all-caps company logo of old for something a bit more friendly.
The Fairphone Fix
Van Eck says it’s about “changing the order” of priorities, of putting the device itself at pole position rather than the ethics it represents. “In the end, it also is clarifying Fairphone’s vision, because the rebrand gave us a more friendly, more approachable identity,” he says. “It’s a bit less paternalistic.”
The message is that Fairphone isn’t just a phone for eco warriors. And chief technology officer Chandler Elizabeth Hatton suggests that image, that classic Fairphone message, may have actually proved off-putting for some.
“When we are marketing the device, we don’t lead with that. Not in our advertising campaigns, not in our communication, and also not the way that I would like to convey it to you,” says Hatton. “It can become preachy in some markets. That message is resonating less right now. There are people that are in panic but also completely exhausted by the climate crisis or questions of ethics.”
So … is it time to de-woke Fairphone? That seems too blunt an interpretation, because there’s no indication that Fairphone plans to dilute its standards. It’s just not going to harp on about them quite as overtly.
Turning Down the Volume
“Fairphone was founded 12 years ago, basically to tackle the social and environmental issues embedded in the electronics industry,” says Van Eck. “What we also saw is that Fairphone was quite situated around telling that story … which meant that the Fairphone was for a lesser addressable market.”
This new approach also involves not having too bold a take on things like AI, which owing to its environmental impact could be seen as antithetical to one part of the old Fairphone message.
