Samsung Beats Apple in Repairability, but Both Receive Poor Grades

When it comes to smartphone repairability, brands offer different levels of ease in fixing devices. A new report suggests that Samsung has a slight advantage over its arch-rival, Apple. However, both companies perform badly overall, lagging well behind their competitors.

Smartphone repairability ranking for major brands

The US PIRG Education Fund recently released its “Failing the Fix 2026” report, which assesses how easy it is to repair smartphones. The study found that Samsung received a D grade, placing it in third spot on the repairability ranking chart. Meanwhile, Apple scored a D-, the lowest among major smartphone brands.

Of course, Samsung edges ahead of Apple, but the results raise worries about repairability in the smartphone industry. Both leading companies were ranked behind rivals such as Motorola and Google. The former topped the chart with a B+, while the latter ranked second with a C-.

For the uninitiated, US PIRG is a consumer advocacy organization that supports Right to Repair. “These new scores better take into account the realities of repair, and highlight that both leading cellphone manufacturers have a lot of room for improvement,” said the organization.

This year’s report uses the European Union’s EPREL (European Product Registry for Energy Labeling) system instead of the French index. It takes into account a host of factors such as ease of disassembly, availability of spare parts, repairability information, and software support. Notably, ease of disassembly plays a big role in the high ranking.

As Android Authority points out, both Samsung and Apple scored low in the software support category. Of course, they offer long-term updates, but in the EPREL database, they list only the minimum required period (five years). The report also considers corporate behavior, removing points from companies that are members of trade groups that lobby against repair legislation. As a result, both companies see their scores fall in this area as well.

That said, the scores do not appear to tell the whole story. Samsung’s newly released Galaxy S26 has received a high repairability score of 9/10 in the teardown test. As of this writing, you can buy the phone from the official US store for $100 off.