According to the data, Samsung holds the top spot in the used smartphone market. They are followed by Apple, Motorola, and Micromax respectively. With numerous offers being rolled out during the year and adoption of exchange as a key sales driver by the top eCommerce players, buyback numbers soared and the fight for market share continued to display interesting dynamics. Newer Brands have been seen upsetting some heavyweights and for some the margin for error is getting pretty slim. Samsung and Apple have been competing for the top spot since quite a while, but 2016 saw the battle reaching almost even ground. Samsung had to hold the fort against all new entrants and moreover against flagship rival Apple.
The Apple iPhone 5S 16GB was the most traded used phone during by the end of 2016. The second spot belongs to Moto G 2, followed by the 16GB iPhone 6. The top 10 devices traded constituted 20.57% of total trade volume, with a total of 762 unique models forming the bulk of the active portfolio of 2016.
The top devices that were traded under warranty, meaning first time owners lost interest within the first year itself, include phones like the iPhone 5S, Galaxy J7, Mi 4i 16GB, Moto G 3, and the iPhone 6S.
When it comes to customer retention, Apple retained almost half of its users, and of the other 50%, 13% went to OnePlus. On the other hand, OnePlus was able to retain 38% of its users, while from those who left the brand, the largest percentage (20.38) went to Apple. Samsung could retain only 17% of its users, and 26% migrated to Apple when choosing newer phones.
City-wise Stats
Retaining the top rank, Delhi gained a 7% share (previously 19%) of all devices traded online. It leads the country in trading used phones at 26%. Delhi also lost 7% in its truth index for a total of 73% (the truth index refers to how many phones were in the exact condition as described online). Second again, Bangalore gained a marginal 2.6% in market share (17.6%) without losing any points for honesty and maintaining a 75% truth index. Mumbai gained 2.7% share, up from 11% to come in 3rd again, while also gaining 2% in their truth index. Gurgaon gained a spot moving up to 4th with 7.6% of devices traded. The city, however, followed Delhi’s trend with a 7% drop in Truth index. Hyderabad gained 2 spots moving from 7th to 5th position with a 6.8% market share. The city was a runner up with 82% truth index. With 6.2% of total trade, Chennai dropped 2 ranks to come in 6th. The truth index was consistent at 69%, the same as the previous period. With a 1 spot drop to 7th and a two basis point drop in share to 6.1%, Pune still managed to jump 8% in its truth index to a happy high of 80%. Low 8th on the list with a share of 3.8% Kolkata had the highest truth index of the covered cities. standing tall at 84%.
Gender-based Stats
Country-wide, only 7.4% of transactions were initiated by women in 2016. Women by far the more generous of the lot but also hoarding devices. Analysis indicated that 28% of women would give away their old phone as opposed to only 13% of men. A contributing factor to this would also be that women are more likely to be hanging on to their old devices. Men were more active in trading online while women were marginally more comfortable trading up at a local store.
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