Wondering if you missed out on the best phone deals?
Whether you bought a phone and don’t know what to do with your old handset or if you were waiting to buy a device after the holiday hype, we have answers for you.
UpTrade Technologies tracks prices on all iPhones in the secondhand phone market year after year. As you can see below, different models have different changes after the Christmas holiday.
It’s not difficult to understand the supply and demand of smartphones post the holiday season but it could easily be an afterthought for those that rarely upgrade. The iPhone has been a hot commodity and given as a present for over a decade and a half now and the supply and demand is easily predictable for the last few years. Let’s try and break it down.
iPhones are typically launched as a new model every year in the fall. Once the new model releases, Apple tends to drop all previous models by a minimum of $100 from their starting price. This immediately drops the resell value of all previous models. When the announcement is made for the new iPhone release, the frenzy of phones being sold starts. There are iPhone fanatics that will upgrade every year to the latest model and they will offload their current device right before the launch is announced. This obviously is not feasible for the majority of smartphone users as they would be without a phone. So when should you sell?
The time to sell to maximize the resell value, you should sell when you upgrade. It sounds like common sense, but handsets will stand to lose value more often than not. In rare circumstances, some models become somewhat rare in the circulation of secondhand device sales, but these are older models that won’t fetch much for the sale. If you notice, the chart shows that the iPhone 6 has increased in value in January, but the value is so low, that it doesn’t really move the needle. The iPhone 12 Mini also jumped in value but once again, the value is lower than the other models so even though it holds its value, it’s still a phone that is not in high demand but the supply is lower as well.
Moral of the story, the faster you sell your phone, the more money you keep in your pockets.
What if you’re in the market to buy a phone? Well, this is certainly a good position to be in in the new year. If you purchase a lightly used or refurbished phone, you can save quite a bit of money after the holiday season. There is a huge offload of smartphones from all of the upgrades that are done in December and the purchasing demand is quite low. The prices dramatically drop in January but they will start to plateau for the next few months after.
You can easily find a good handset at a great value by searching UpTradeit.com. We compare prices from multiple trusted sources to bring you the best value. You can also use the site to sell your device for the highest value possible. We take the hassle out of the search!
