Apple will accept Android devices as trade-ins

Apple will accept Android devices as trade-ins

17 March 2015, 16:12
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Apple Inc. plans to start accepting non-Apple devices as trade-ins, as the Silicon Valley tech giant attempts to extend market-share gains against smartphones based on Android software, Bloomberg has reported.

The company started a trade-in program in 2013 seeking to get more users to upgrade to its newest products. Now, that plan is being expanded to include Android smartphones, as well as BlackBerry devices, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public.

Apple is seeking to fuel even more iPhone 6 and 6 Plus sales after selling 74.5 million units in the last three months of 2014, up 46 percent from a year earlier. Thanks to record sales, shipments of devices based on Apple’s mobile iOS software surpassed Android in the U.S., according to Kantar Worldpanel Comtech, with 47.7 percent of the market compared with Android’s 47.6 percent.

Compared with any period in three years, Apple had more Android “switchers” in the past quarter, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said on the latest earnings call.

Apple’s current iPhone trade-in program is being done in a partnership with Brightstar Corp., which resells the devices to overseas customers for a profit.

It is not clear though if the new Android trade-in program will include Brightstar.

Spokesmen for Apple and Brightstar declined to comment.

In Israel Ganot's opinion, who is former CEO of Gazelle Inc., while Android phones don’t hold their value as well as iPhones, it still makes sense for Apple Stores to accept them, an online mobile device trade-in company.

“Apple can afford to pay more than the market value to get you to switch over, on the idea that you’re going to fall in love with the iOS ecosystem and stay for a long time,” Ganot said in an interview.

"It’s going to make a lot of Galaxy S5 users think twice” about upgrading, Ganot said, if Apple Stores start accepting Android-based Samsung Electronics Co. smartphones before the company’s new high-end Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge go on sale next month.

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