Reliability Analysis of Smartphones Based on the Field Return Data

In recent years, smartphones have become indispensable tools and media for obtaining information. Consequently, investigation and data analysis studies exploring smartphone reliability and failure rates have become increasingly important for mobile phone retailers and manufacturers. The design capabilities and manufacturing technologies for smartphones are continuously upgraded, and customer requirement for reliability increase correspondingly. Therefore, this study investigated after-sales repair and maintenance data obtained from a Taiwanese mobile phone maintenance provider for three brands of smartphones (A, B, and C). We assumed that the quality of the different models of the three brands is consistent. Statistical analysis techniques and software were used to calculate the parameter values of four failure probability distribution functions (i.e., exponential, log-normal, log-logistic, and Weibull). The maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) method was also employed to assess the log-likelihood value and determine the most appropriate failure probability distribution for each smartphone. Finally, we calculated the predicted market failure rate for the three smartphone brands. The results and conclusions obtained in this study can benefit important market players, such as consumers, mobile phone retailers, and manufacturers, regarding smartphone quality, sales strategies, after-sales warranty service packages, and manufacturing process improvements.