“Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything,” Steve Jobs said when he unveiled the iPhone in 2007. He was right; the world was never the same. But the iPhone 16? Meh.
The newest model, which hit stores in September, is off to a straggling start. Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo estimated that first-weekend preorder sales were down by nearly 13% compared with first-weekend sales for last year’s iPhone 15. The iPhone 15 also had an underwhelming start to the year: from January to March, Apple reported a 10% year-over-year drop in phone revenue. In the 17 years since the original came out, the release of a new iPhone has gone from the marquee tech event of the year to little more than a software update wrapped in cellophane.
Replacing that hype is a new kind of hype: for old iPhones. The global market for refurbished smartphones grew by 5% year over year from 2021 to 2022, according to Counterpoint Research. Apple made up half of the resold-phone marketplace in 2022. It accounted for about a quarter of new smartphones shipped globally in late 2023, according to market intelligence firm International Data Corporation. (The company also sells its own refurbished products.) In Europe, some 43% of people have already owned a refurbished phone, according to a 2023 survey conducted by Vodafone and Recommerce Group, a tech buyback company. Zion Market Research estimates that in the US, the market for used phones could grow by about 13% a year through 2032.
Glen Cardoza, a senior research analyst at Counterpoint, says a few things are driving the used-phone revolution. People are more aware of refurbished phones, thanks to ad campaigns and word of mouth. Learning that your friend has an iPhone 12 and still manages to be the most active member of your group chat may make you more likely to get a used phone yourself. The quality of repairs and guarantees from refurbished-phone sellers have improved, making the phones less risky to buy. Some shoppers care about environmental impact, but high prices are the chief concern. “With incremental improvements between new smartphone versions, a growing share of consumers feel that refurbished options are better,” Cardoza tells me in an email. “They do not mind using a cheaper refurbished model that has most of the recent features.”
Refurbished-tech sellers think this is their moment to seize. Back Market, a secondhand-tech marketplace based in France, has raised more than $1 billion and is on track to become profitable in Europe for the first time this year, says CEO Thibaud Hug de Larauze. During a recent press conference, he revealed the company had served 15 million customers and sold 30 million items, indicating that Back Market has had a good number of repeat buyers during the past 10 years. Phones are the majority of Back Market’s sales, but the company also sells, among other items, smart watches, headphones, laptops, and video-game consoles. Refurbished tech is now among the five most popular secondhand categories purchased on eBay.
Hug de Larauze is extremely bullish on the future of secondhand tech: He predicts that within 10 years, 90% of adults could be buying refurbished products or opting to repair their devices rather than buying new ones. “People start to actually realize there is not that much innovation in the next product,” he tells me. Consumers are also uncertain about all the AI that companies, Apple included, are baking into their latest devices. “What does it do?” he says. “What does it change in your life?” Hug de Larauze likens the used-phone revolution to the shifts in car sales. Cars are expensive and lose value, and innovation from one model to the next has become negligible. The idea of buying a used car and fixing it as parts break down is normalized. If phones are just as poor of an investment, why not get something more affordable that gets the job done — even if it means sacrificing horsepower and the latest add-ons?
Refurbished-phone dealers are also finding creative waves to counter years of marketing that capitalizes on “newphoria,” the feeling of elation people get when unboxing a shiny new tech toy. Back Market satirized the idea in an ad last year, showing people eager to grab the new product but mocking the slight changes to buttons and charging ports. The company also recently ran a mystery-phone promotion. For $249 or 299 euros, customers could buy a refurbished iPhone or Android without knowing the model they’d get. The phones sold out in two hours in France and just days in the US, Hug de Larauze says. Back Market didn’t provide the total number of phones sold during the promotion, but Hug de Larauze said the sales exceeded the company’s expectations. It showed that there are shoppers who care far more about the phone’s price than its model.
Anmol Aroz, a 23-year-old who works in IT sales in England, says he bought a refurbished iPhone 13 Pro two years ago and saved about £500. He’s been impressed with the phone and less impressed by the new features on more-recent models. He feels like he can do enough with ChatGPT on his phone and doesn’t need Apple Intelligence yet. Aroz says sustainability was also on his mind, adding that he’s not so wooed by new clothes or new tech, both of which lose value quickly. “The second you touch the wrapper, it’s £200 down the drain,” he says. “I’m pretty much set on sticking to the refurbished route.”
Perhaps the biggest thing blocking people from buying more secondhand phones is the manufacturers themselves.
Amy Marty Conrad, a 34-year-old who lives in the Washington, DC, area says she and her husband have each bought refurbished phones. She’s on her second, a Samsung Galaxy S21, which she bought two years ago. She recently replaced the battery, giving it even more life. “I mostly use my phone for calls, email, work, and a camera,” she says. “A lot of the other software innovations aren’t doing a lot for me.” She’s also conscious about waste, and she buys clothing and other household items secondhand, too.
But perhaps the biggest thing blocking people from buying more secondhand phones is the manufacturers themselves. Through a practice called “parts pairing,” in which a replacement part can work only if a company’s software recognizes and approves it, tech companies have made it difficult to repair your own phone or to get third-party shops to do so: Replace your cracked iPhone screen at a local repair shop, and your Face ID may never work again. That’s changing, albeit slowly. In April, Apple announced it would begin making changes that would allow for some used genuine Apple parts to be put into other iPhones. Apple did not respond to an email asking about updates on the rollout of the change, but the company has long maintained that parts pairing bolsters a phone’s security.
In March, shortly before Apple’s announcement, Oregon passed a law banning parts pairing, becoming the first US state to do so. And while it applies only to devices made after January 1, 2025, it’s a major shift for how manufacturers make their future tech fixable. More lawmakers are tackling repair impediments, and the European Union this year adopted laws designed to make it easier for people to get their products fixed by manufacturers or third-party repairers rather than being pushed to replace them.
Tim Cook certainly doesn’t see the rise of refurbished phones as an existential threat. Even underwhelming sales are underwhelming by Apple’s standards. It has already sold an estimated tens of millions of iPhone 16s, and that’s before the typical holiday boost and the release of Apple Intelligence. But with consumers’ growing AI skepticism and interest in secondhand phones, the company would need to summon the kind of dazzle unseen since Steve Jobs’ presentation in 2007 to reverse the trend of dwindling excitement with the iPhones 17, 18, 19, and 20.
Two years ago, I bought a refurbished iPhone 11 from Back Market after the display on my iPhone XR suddenly became unusable. It didn’t have the upgraded camera or 5G — but the phone let me text, doomscroll on social media, and take decent photos, and it had good battery life. In an age of constant tech changes, sometimes all you need is for a phone to be a phone.
Amanda Hoover is a senior correspondent at Business Insider covering the tech industry. She writes about the biggest tech companies and trends.
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