Manufacturers usually have their own Android buy back programs in which they receive older model in exchange for cash. Many online stores and physical shops also offer the same program. They resell the units that they get with a bit of markup for profit. The number of people who are buying used phones are increasing compared to previous years. In the past, old phones were considered useless. They were usually tossed aside as buyers jostled to get their hands on the latest and greatest models. However, things have changed quite a bit because of the following:

Flagship Phones are Getting More Expensive

Flagship phones used to be highly subsidized to make them more affordable. They were sold for several hundreds of dollars which was not cheap but not terribly expensive either. Buyers justified the expense with the quality of the units and the impressive new features. These days, the top tier phones are a lot more expensive with price tags that exceed a thousand dollars. That is far too high for many. The price causes them to reevaluate the purchase and consider alternatives such as the previous year’s model. If they purchase a refurbished unit in mint condition, then they are still enjoying high quality while saving money.

Progress is Incremental Rather than Revolutionary

There used to be a lot of hype for the newest models because every generation provided remarkable leaps in technology. People did not want to get left behind. They were willing to pay large amount just to make sure they did not miss out on the best technologies out there. However, now it seems like progress has gotten incremental rather than revolutionary. There are very small changes between successive generations. You would need to jump a few generations before you can actually notice the difference in speed and features. There is no compelling reason to spend so much.

Lots of People are Content with Older Phones

Some buyers gravitate to older phones because they do not really need the fancy features. Multi-camera setups are nice but they might be perfectly happy with a single shooter. Wrap-around screens, flexible devices, and other innovations are amazing but these may not be relevant for their use cases. Indeed, many will buy old phones so that their parents or young children could have their own units. They do not want to deplete their savings for these.

Android buy back programs serve the real needs of today’s consumers.