If you’re looking to buy a shiny new flagship phone, you’re not going to leave the shop with much change from £1,300. Samsung, Huawei, Motorola, and Apple are now all regularly charging the sort of sums we once thought was a little steep for a laptop. Even more affordable brands like OnePlus are creeping closer to the £900 mark. However, new data shows that if you want to recoup some of that money on the second-hand market …there’s still only brand to pick.
Apple is a supremely popular brand right now. So, while there was a time when you couldn’t pay someone to take your Apple Newton off your hands, these days, iPhones tend to hold their value pretty well.
According to new research from trade-in site musicMagpie, Apple still leads the way when customers look to hand over their phones in exchange for something new. The new stats show that, on average, iPhones will lose around 43 percent of their value in the first 12 months, and 61 percent by the end of a standard 24-month contract period.
Compare that to its Android rivals and you’ll see why this brand has such an advantage. MusicMagpie says that both Samsung and OnePlus devices will lose a whopping 64 percent of their value in the first 12 months.
Things get worse over 24 months with Samsung phones dropping by 76 percent and OnePlus falling by 81 percent. If you thought that was bad, spare a thought for Huawei fans. It seems the continuing US trade block, which means the firm can’t now include any of Google’s popular apps and services, has really hit these devices.
The stats reveal that Huawei phones will lose 74 percent of their value in the first year and 88 percent by the end of year two. Ouch!
If you want to know which phone has held its value best overall then musicMagpie has revealed that the iPhone 11, first released in 2019, lost the least value at just 32 percent. At the other end of the scale, the Huawei P20 was the worst-performing handset in the 2021 report, losing a shocking 84 percent of its value in the first year.
“It’s good news for iPhone fans, as Apple continues to hold the top spot for the brand which retains the most value,” said musicMagpie. “Samsung shares the number two spot with OnePlus in this year’s report, with Galaxy and OnePlus handsets losing an average of 64% of their value after being on sale for 12 months. The most commonly traded-in handset in the 12 months up to August 2020 was the iPhone 7. The handset also only dropped in value by 44% in the first year of its release, earning it a place in our top 10 for retaining value.”
