A third of Brits hang on to their old phones

As your correspondent can attest, this is a perfectly rational thing to do, as it offers an insurance policy for worst case scenarios in which your main phone gets lost, stolen or broken. However slow and quirky that sweated asset may have become prior to its eventual upgrade, a pre-customised, if aged, device is infinitely preferable to the horror of being unconnected for even a few hours.

According to GfK’s numbers, 33% of Brits go for that option, with a further 15% of them bequeathing their old device to a needy acquaintance and 5% just chucking them out. It seems GfK had an eye on the circular economy when it conducted this survey and it notes that 13% of obsolete phones are recycled, while 8% are traded in for the new one.

We don’t know what the other 26% said, but GfK compensated for that by throwing in the interesting datapoint that In 2023, sales of new handsets priced at £800 plus accounted for nearly 40% of the market, up from 28% in 2022. Inflation will have played a major part in that but, since you can still get a great phone for under £800, or even £400, this must also say something about evolving consumer taste.

“Our research suggests that parting with an old mobile handset is not easy,” Lizzie Bailey, Director for Telco at GfK UK. “Perhaps because these devices are essential to our lives, selling them on or trading them in isn’t the most popular choice. People have invested in their devices both financially and emotionally.

“As we continue to evaluate the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on the mobile phone market, we see that people are still prepared to invest in a new handset. Demand for the highest-priced models was up last year, suggesting a move to premium models, a trend we are tracking in other technology categories. What is surprising is how few old devices are sold and traded-in to help pay for a new handset. This may change as the demand for and the reliability of refurbished mobile phone handsets increases.” 

A month ago, GfK published a report titled “One-quarter of all mobile phones sold in the UK in 2023 were bought second-hand or refurbished”. That would seem to indicate that demand is currently outstripping supply, suggesting some kind of market failure. Apparently, demand for refurbished mobile phones is up 36% since 2021, so there’s a clear business opportunity for anyone who can figure out how to incentivise people to resell more of their old kit.