A new report on mobile phone depreciation reveals some interesting insights when comparing Android and iOS devices.
Specifically, over 24 months, top-tier Android phones lose value at twice the rate of iPhones.
However, after four years, the gap narrows a bit, with iPhones losing about 66.43% of their original resale value compared to 81.11% for Android devices.
On average, Android phones priced at $350 or less lose half their trade-in value within just one year. Owners of popular budget brands like Samsung, Motorola, LG, HTC, and Google saw an average trade-in value drop of 52.61% between 2019 and 2020.
These findings come from BankMyCell, a trade-in website that tracked the resale values of 310 devices from various manufacturers. The report highlights which smartphones are most likely to lose resale value based on brand, model, and operating system.
iPhone vs Samsung
The report notes that nine months after release, the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra’s trade-in value dropped by 64.71% from its original retail price. In comparison, the iPhone 11 Pro Max only lost 32.22% in the same nine-month period.
But Apple isn’t immune to steep drops. The iPhone SE 2020 didn’t follow the average 16.7% depreciation in its first year. Like budget Android phones, it lost about 38.32% of its resale value within eight months.
Budget Android phones priced at $350 or less lose an average of 52.61% of their resale value in the first year, 73.61% in the second, 85.15% in the third, and nearly 95% by the fourth year.
A common example is the Samsung A50, which lost 79.94% of its trade-in value from March 2019 to December 2020. Another is the Motorola G7 series, which dropped 79.17% in just nine months in 2019, then another 61.97% from January to December 2020.
Google Pixel Phones Drop 40% in Value in One Year
The report shows that owners of the 10 most traded Google Pixel phones in 2020 lost an average of 40.17% of their device’s value within 12 months.
In 2020, the average depreciation across all Pixel models and storage sizes was 38.46%. The Pixel 4 and 4 XL lost between $154 and $163, which is significant considering their initial trade-in values ranged from $380 to $490 in January 2020. Both Pixel 4 and 4 XL from 2019 ranked in the top 10 for highest depreciation, with Pixel 4 dropping 40.06% and Pixel 4 XL 34.64%.
These models also appeared among the phones with the steepest overall value drops.
HTC Phones Lose the Most Value
The report tracked depreciation across nine popular phone brands to see which lost the most value in 2020.
HTC smartphones dropped an average of 53.08% in trade-in value from January to December 2020. The HTC U11 Life (2017) saw the highest drop at 81.82%.
Motorola phones lost an average of 42.57% in the same period, with the Motorola G7 (2019) dropping the most at 61.97%.
Sony phones fell by an average of 39.51%, with the Xperia XA2 (2018) experiencing the steepest decline at 72.22%.
Source: TechRadar
