Used Smartphone Market Grows in Japan

The used smartphone market continues to expand, growing to account for 10% of smartphone sales in Japan.

According to MM Research Institute, a private research firm, the number of used smartphones sold in 2023 reached a record high of 2,728,000 units, up 16.6% from the previous year. This figure accounts for 9.7% of all smartphone sales in Japan. The company also forecasts that the market will grow to 3.15 million units (up 15.5%) in F2024, and that the expansion trend will continue thereafter, growing to 4.38 million units in 2028.

The expansion of the used market is said to be driven by the rising price of new handsets due to the depreciation of the yen. For example, the minimum price of an iPhone has remained constant at $799 since the iPhone 12 in the U.S., but in Japan, the iPhone 12 costs 85,500 JPY, while the iPhone 16, released this year, costs 124,800 JPY, an increase of nearly 40,000 JPY.

Against this backdrop, ITOCHU Corporation, a major Japanese trading company, announced on November 26 that it would sell high-quality used smartphones certified by Google for the first time in Japan. On the same day, the company began handling the phones on Nikosuma, a used smartphone sales site operated by an ITOCHU subsidiary.

The used smartphones are sold as “certified refurbished products,” and any scratches on the surface are repaired to look like new, and the battery is replaced with a new genuine one. The price is said to be 20-30% less than a new product.

IT giant Apple is also encouraging the expansion of the used market by selling its own certified pre-owned smartphones.

Manufacturers are hoping to capture the demand for certified products that are inexpensive and of high quality, as the weak yen and high prices drive up the price of new models.

(source) https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20241127/k10014650381000.html