Android repairs cost operators $2bn a year

Google OS hardware generates twice as many customer care calls as iOS

The claim comes from a WDS study of over 600,000 technical support calls in the last 12 months. WDS is a customer care specialist to operators.

It found that device fragmentation in the Android space has led to a more technical problems than other platforms: 14 per cent of technical support calls on Android relate to hardware, versus 11 per cent for Windows Phone, seven per cent  for iOS and six per cent for BlackBerry OS.

Tim Deluca-Smith, VP of marketing at WDS, said the problem was not with the Android platform per se, but the fragmentation across different SKUs.

"Many operators are treating Android as a standard implementation with a consistent customer experience. Given its nature, this of course isn't the case.

"The Android customer experience differs enormously between devices and this means that the way in which Android devices are retailed and supported must consider factors such as the hardware build and quality of components," he said.