Resumen

RODRIGUEZ, Daniel  y  PINILLOS-LAFFON, Alberto. Black Brands in Spain’s mobile telephone market: Are we informed by brands about who makes the smartphones they sell?. Revista Convergências [online]. 2021, vol.14, n.27, pp.39-52.  Epub 31-Mayo-2021. ISSN 2184-0180.  https://doi.org/10.53681/c1514225187514391s.27.90.

This work responds to the growing need for transparency in corporate communication. Users demand a close and empathetic relationship with those who want to sell us a product or service. In the mobile phone and smartphone sector, the greatest source of opacity is in who actually manufactured the device.

To check this, we have carried out two field studies separated by less than two years, seeking answers to the question that gives this paper its title: is the information provided by brands about who makes their handsets really transparent? To do this, we took the largest and most varied catalogue of mobile phones in Spain and collected the make, model, identification of who makes (yes, no, and in what detail) and whether they actually make the phone.

The results will give us an insight into the level of opacity of the Spanish phone market, hence its relevance, because the conclusions of the study are not at all encouraging: in a short period of time, levels of transparency have gone backwards, and we propose that brands take these issues seriously and do not let their customers down.

Palabras clave : Black Brands; Transparency; Corporate Communication; Smartphones.

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