iPhone upgraders leave nearly $13.5B in old hardware to collect dust
According to research group OnePoll's "Mobile Mountain Study," conducted for resale website SellCell.com, iPhone owners are leaving a collective pile of unused legacy hardware on the table estimated to be worth $13.4 billion on the resale market, reports MarketWatch. That number has grown from the year-ago period, which saw about $9 billion worth of iPhones stashed away.
Looking at the bigger picture, the percentage of owners who keep smartphones rather than selling them has decreased from last year, dropping to 50 percent from 55 percent one year earlier. The overall trade-in value of mothballed phones is up to $47 billion, a significant jump from $34 billion a year ago.
As for what people do with their old phones, 20 percent said they gift them to family and friends, 12 percent donate to charity and 9 percent simply throw them away. According to the poll, only 18 percent of users showed concern over security issues related to reselling or giving away handsets, down from 23 percent last year. As to why Americans "hoard" old phones instead of selling or gifting, the survey found 40 percent keep legacy devices as spares, 36 percent "don't know what else to do with them" and 17 percent of respondents were just "too lazy."
