The smartphone market is valued at a monstrous $240 billion at the international level. This number was released in the course of the trial between Apple and Samsung over patent violations, but another market that has never reaped much attention is the smartphone repair market. Users spend ridiculous amounts of money on phone contracts, but also spend almost as much on repairs because phones have increasingly become more breakable in the last four to five years.

$5.9 Billion Profit By Repairing iPhones

Research has highlighted the same story and one of the more astounding statistics to have emerged is that Apple has gathered in $5.9 billion in repairs since the iPhone first went on sale in 2007. The high costs along with the large number of users who damage their phones are responsible for this; last year 30% of iPhone owners damaged their devices.

Dropping iPhone; The Most Common Cause of Damaging

The data has been collected during a survey conducted by SquareTrade, one of the primary consumer electronics protection plan providers, who surveyed more than 2000 iPhone owners. Results indicate that the most common way of damaging an iPhone is by dropping it and the next is by dropping something on it, especially liquids. 5% of users have put their phone in the washing machine and the funny statistic here is that 9% have dropped it in a toilet. This is rather comical but it seems reasonable when one considers the number of people talking on their phones in restrooms. Water, soda, beer, wine, tea and coffee are the most common liquids to be spilled on the devices.

People Keep Using Damaged iPhones

In several circumstances, iPhone owners resort to keeping an impaired device because of high repair costs or because they are not entitled for replacement owing to contracts with network providers. Usually, iPhones are swapped at a reduced price but some contracts do not permit it. 11% of owners keep phones with a broken screen while 6% have their device taped up and a whopping 17% of owners have damaged their phone more than two times. A lot of the users who damage their devices are under 35 years of age and many do not have insurance for the phones.

The fact that people are careless with phones is perhaps because a phone is an important part of everyone’s day and people tend to oversee it; it is on your bed, in your car etc. The increasing repair costs seem to have gotten to customers who are now looking for insurance from network providers which entitle owners to a repaired or refurbished device if the one they have is broken.