Refurbished iPhones are a separate business!
Thanks to the program Apple Trade Apple product owners have a comfortable, safe and fast option to get money for them. It is possible that after making this exchange, most people forget what happens next and just trust what Apple says is going on behind the scenes, but now, thanks to a recent investigation, we can verify it.
This time, Joanna Stern, from The Wall Street Journal visited the US Mobile Phones (USMP) warehouse in New Jersey, United States, one of the partners used by major US carriers. According to the report, the USMP processed more than 2.5 million exchange devices last year, and most of them were iPhones. And it is a business that does not stop growing.
The other iPhone factory
According to official figures, in 2022, 73.5 million mobile phones will be recycled in the United States, of which most are iPhones. The sale of these represents a business of 64.5 billion dollars.
During his visit USMP received 3,000 trade-in iPhones. This allowed Stern to continue the refurbishing process with an iPhone 11a mobile that is still worth buying in 2023. It consists of four steps that includes data erasure, cleaning, sorting and kitting.
Two-thirds of the phones arriving at USMP facilities comply with these steps and sold to wholesalers abroad. the other third goes to its sister company, Back in the Box, to be cleaned, refurbished and sell to buyers on Amazon or Back Marketfor buyers interested in refurbished iPhones.
In the latter case, Stern showed the end of the process. USMP listed this iPhone 11 for resale at $350, a decent profit compared to the $200 trade-in value but there are other expenses.
As Back in the Box CEO Ari Marinovsky explains, although the price gives the consumer a good discount. It also gives the company enough margin, between 10% and 15%, to make a profit.
Back in the Box and USMP make up to $100 on this particular phone, restoration labor and 10% Back Market cut cut profits. So does the prevalence of faulty phones that have to be sold at a loss. But the business continues and the sales volume manages to balance these disadvantages.