Survey finds that UK and EU customers ‘mistrust’ routers from Russia and China

Towards the end of last year, Fritz! published the results of a survey showing that the majority of UK and EU-based customers would distrust WiFi routers made in China or Russia. Now in a follow-up survey, Fritz! has found that the majority of customers also aren't aware that many ISPs send customers re-badged Chinese routers.

YouGov conducted the survey, finding more than 16,000 participants across 14 European countries, including the UK. The results found that European customers have a “high level of mistrust of products from China, Russia and the USA”.

Looking at the UK-specific stats, the survey found that 59% would mistrust a router from China, while 70% would mistrust a router from Russia. However, only 11% would have low trust in a router from Europe.

However, the survey also found that most respondents were also unaware of exactly where the devices they own have come from, particularly when it came to ISP-supplied routers.

Only 14% knew that TP-Link is a Chinese brand, and 49% of respondents were unsure of where Netgear originates. Only a couple of brands like Starlink and Huawei were associated correctly often. Fritz! itself was only correctly identified by 26% of respondents in the UK.

More than half of respondents (55% to be exact) would prefer to see more devices ‘Made in Europe'. We expect that such labels will soon become a good part of the marketing for companies like Fritz! in the near future.

KitGuru Says: Do you use your ISP-provided router, or have you swapped it out for a third-party one?

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