The secondary market for mobile phones is a $25B business that is predicted to grow 4-5x faster than the overall smartphone market. Annual upgrades and trade-in programs have played the biggest role in growing the mobile secondary market. The rise of the mobile secondary market is creating demand for refurbished, older model devices (both in the U.S. and around the globe). This growing demand is keeping the value of some devices high—for example, the iPhone X was wholesaling at 75% of original retail value as reported by the B-Stock Mobile Team in June 2018.
Such statistics were recently revisited by Hyla Mobile in its Q3 2018 Summary. The company reported that the iPhone X in Q3 2018 still had one of the highest Trade In Values. Consumers can expect to get back just under 50% of the original value of the iPhone X when they trade it in.
Other interesting notes from a recently published Hyla infographic include:
- iPhone 6 and 6s were the two Most Traded phones in Q3 ‘18
- Devices that lost the most value in Q3 ‘18 were the LG V30 and the Google Pixel 2 & the Pixel 2 XL
- The average age of returned phones in Q3 ‘18 was 2.83 years
