Our Old, Abandoned iPhones Are Worth A Collective $13.4 Billion
How do you dispose of your old iPhone after upgrading to the latest model – do you give it away, sell it, or leave it in a drawer and forget about it? According to recent research, 50 percent of smartphone owners take the easy route and leave their smartphone to collect dust after upgrading, resulting in a hoard of unused iPhones worth a collective $13.4 billion.
The news comes from MarketWatch, which cites data from OnePoll conducted for SellCell.com. Though the 50 percent figure quoted above is down five percent from the previous year, the overall trade-in value of all unused handsets has actually increased to a collective $47 billion. Out of this figure, an estimated $13.4 billion comes from abandoned iPhones, which is also up from $9 billion for the previous year.
But why, you might ask, do iPhone owners dispose of their smartphones in this way?
OnePoll notes that 40 percent of hoarders claim to keep their old handsets as reserves, 36 percent “don’t know what to do with them” (hint: eBay!), and 17 percent admitted to merely being “too lazy.”
Out of those taking a more proactive route, 20 percent of respondents said that they give old smartphones to friends or family, 12 percent donate them to charity, and nine percent outright throw handsets away. It seems security concerns are down this year, too, with 18 percent of users noting that they were worried somebody might access data from an old handset (compared with 23 percent last year).
Options for cashing in on old iPhones are numerous, and trade-in services like Gazelle, Amazon, and even Apple offer cash or credit for legacy smartphones. Each year, we publish our own iPhone Trade-In Guide, too, which provides detailed information on the best trade-in details available.
How do you dispose of your old iPhone, then?
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