Second hand smartphone recycling appears to be a potentially lucrative business  as the difference between trade-in and subsequent selling of certain devices can be as much as 80%.

• The secondhand smartphone market is steadily growing with carriers offering device trade-ins and providing secondhand smartphones both as prepaid devices and on contracts.

This extract examines trade-in smartphone prices, secondhand prepaid prices and new product prices for Apple and Samsung devices from O2 UK in November 2016.

• Average trade-in prices for Apple’s smartphones range from 14-20% of the current device retail value for new products (iPhone SE, iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus).
• For Samsung the average trade-in price is 12-14% of the new device price for the Galaxy S6, S6 Edge, S7 and S7 Edge.
• Secondhand products are sold by O2 UK for about 30% less than the current retail price for a new device, a difference of 80% compared to the product’s average trade-in value. However the list of secondhand devices available for sale through the online store is limited compared to the trade-in prices available from O2 Recycle.