• Smaller retailers and distributors are now offering services like COD, part-payment-based delivery, credit facilities, and warranty options.

• The collections are predominantly made by organized retailers and ecommerce players, but the bulk of the sales (77%) are made by the fragmented unorganized smaller sellers across the country.

• Even though e-commerce and retail players keep the A-grade smartphones for themselves, the small retailers can revive low-grade used smartphones successfully and sell them in tier 2 and tier 3 towns where demand is growing.

• Small businesses can now choose the volume and grade of used smartphones they want and order the bulk accordingly. This can be done based on the extent of repair needed, fostering transparency and better connectivity among smaller businesses nationwide.

The Indian refurbished smartphone market is seeing much stronger growth than the new smartphone market in 2024, according to Counterpoint Research’s Global Secondary Smartphone Market Report. India has one of the world’s fastest growing secondary smartphone markets and is seeing an interesting development in the unorganized secondary smartphone market as it witnesses increasing demand.

What stands out is how the unorganized market has matured in the last 18 months. The organized market has been gaining share, while the unorganized market is being incorporated into the supply chain in a more active manner. Smaller businesses have realized that they need to provide consumers with more trust factors, pushing them to provide customers with services like cash on delivery (COD), part-payment-based delivery, credit facilities, and warranty options.

The unorganized smartphone market now accounts for 77% of the total refurbished smartphone market sales in India. The collections are predominantly made by organized retailers and ecommerce players, but the bulk of the sales are made by the fragmented unorganized smaller sellers across the country.

Source: Global Secondary Smartphone Market Report, 2024

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