With the 2019 Apple Keynote just days away, consumers are eagerly awaiting the latest range of iPhones. So, if you’ve got an old iPhone, now is the time to sell, as new research reveals older handsets could be set to lose up 30% of their value in the coming days!
The news comes as tech site musicMagpie released its 4th annual Phone Depreciation Report – https://www.musicmagpie.co.uk/
The annual report, which used musicMagpie’s own unique trade-in data, tracks the value of the most popular handsets from Apple, Samsung, Google, OnePlus and Huawei, to see how well phones hold on to their value.
How quickly are phones losing value?
According to this year’s report, while handsets are becoming increasingly expensive, they’re losing value much quicker than some older and cheaper handsets.
The iPhone XS which was released last year, and the X, Apple’s 2017 flagship, both launched at the same price: £999. After 6 months on the market, the X had a trade-in price of £610 – a 39% deprecation rate – while the XS had a trade-in value of £404 – a 60% drop. Meanwhile, the iPhone XR, which was released in October 2018 for £749, is currently worth £421, dropping by 44% in the first year.
Samsung have also seen the prices of their Galaxy handsets increase, with the last 3 launches of the ‘Plus’ range being priced at £799 (S8+), £869 (S9+) and £999 (S10+). However, like the more expensive iPhones, these flagship Samsung handsets have not held on to their value very well. After 6 months on sale, the S8+ had lost 47% of its value, while the S9+ and S10+ had lost 50% and 58% respectively.
So why are these newer devices losing more value than their predecessors?
Jon Miller, MD of Electronics at musicMagpie, said: “In the past, we’ve seen that devices with higher specs typically tend to hold their values well, however, in the recent set of releases, this hasn’t been the case.
“The reason for this is mainly a lack of innovation and consumers can’t distinguish between the upgraded features which leads to them choosing an older generation of the phone when thinking of ‘upgrading’ – because essentially, they can purchase an older version of the phone and it does the same thing, but for a lot cheaper.”
Which brands are performing best?
Apple continues to hold the top spot as the brand which retains the most value. On average, iPhones will lose 44% of their value in the first 12 months, and 62% by the end of a standard 24-month contract period.
Samsung shares the number two spot with Google in this year’s report, with Galaxy and Pixel handsets losing an average of 62% of their value after being on sale for 12 months. After the second year, Google Pixels will have lost 75% of their value on average, while Samsung Galaxys will have depreciated by 78%.
While Huawei and OnePlus are still performing more poorly than Apple, Google and Samsung, it’s not all bad news. Both brands have seen their results improve considerably from last year. In our 2018 release, Huawei handsets were reported as losing 84% of their value in the first 12 months, while this year the figure is just 74% after 12 months, not hitting 84% until 24 months.
Meanwhile, OnePlus handsets were losing an average of 97% of their value in the first 12 months, while now their 12 months depreciation figure is just 77%, reaching 89% by month 24.
Head over to the musicMagpie website to view the full report – https://www.musicmagpie.co.uk/
Here are the current trade-in values offered by musicMagpie:
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