Apple May Start Accepting Android Phones As Trade-Ins

HughPickens.com writes Bloomberg reports that according to a person with knowledge of the matter, Apple plans to start accepting non-Apple devices as trade-ins as the company seeks to extend market-share gains against Android smartphones. Apple is seeking to fuel even more iPhone 6 and 6 Plus sales after selling 74.5 million units in the last three months of 2014. Thanks to record sales, shipments of iPhones surpassed Android in the US with 47.7 percent of the market compared with Android's 47.6 percent. According to Apple CEO Tim Cook Apple "experienced the highest Android switcher rate in any of the last three launches in the three previous years." While Android phones don't hold their value as well as iPhones, it still makes sense for Apple Stores to accept them, says Israel Ganot, former CEO of Gazelle Inc., an online mobile device trade-in company. "Apple can afford to pay more than the market value to get you to switch over," says Ganot, "on the idea that you're going to fall in love with the iOS ecosystem and stay for a long time."

Comments

Commercially makes sense ... maybe

[Chrisq]

They have such a markup that they can afford to buy market share. On the other hand I don't know how attractive a change would be though. I think that a lot of people buy one system and stick with it because of the integration. Either you use hangouts, gmail, google calendar etc, or facetime, iCalender, and so on. Changing from one to another would be a pain.

Re:Commercially makes sense ... maybe

[Lumpy]

Oh yes SUCH a high markup....

Ignore that the HTC M8 and the soon to be released M9 cost as much as the iphone 6 plus.

But then we have the Samsung S6 that will only cost....... $899 to $1199

So what it your point again? ALL cellphones are expensive as hell.

Re:Commercially makes sense ... maybe

[Chrisq]

ALL cellphones are expensive as hell.

I just got a new Sony Xperia phone for $300. Nice screen, fast CPU. Works great.

Exactly. GP is like a Ferrari owner objecting to the high cost by saying "All cars are expensive - just look at the Lamborghini. And the Bugatti is more expensive than the Ferrari".

I still use a perfectly usable Nexus 4 and my daughter has just bought a Moto-G for a fraction of the price of an iPhone and that works really well

Very low trade in values

[beltsbear]

Most people will be attempting to trade in phones with almost no value. The people who buy high end Android phones are Android fans and are going to be unlikely to trade for an iPhone. The vast majority of the Android phones sold are low priced and drop to less then $50 trade in value within two years, the time that they would be traded in. An iPhone that is bought new is typically worth 3-5x that at the two year point. The 2.5 year old iPhone 5 still sells for $200 on eBay in good condition.

Samsung

[Ark42]

I've really been a fan of many things Samsung in the past (TVs, LCDs, even my Blu-ray player is Samsung) and at some point I'm going to replace my Galaxy S3. The S6 is now NOT an option because of things I really care about: user replaceable battery - I use the 4x sized ZeroLemon battery from Amazon), removable SD Card, and the ability to easily root (Not sure what Knox and stuff has done to the newer models).
Is this going to make me trade in my S3 for an Apple phone? No way. Absolutely not. Apple is even worse with all these important features. It doesn't matter how much they give me in "trade in" it's still probably less than I could get just selling the phone myself anyway.

People sell their new phones

[BarbaraHudson]

Too many people sell their old phones for decent money. Others (like my sister) like their two-year-old models with all their data on them and see no real reason to upgrade, so when they're offered an upgrade, they sell the new phone.

iTunes drove me to Android in the first place

[enjar]

I got sick and tired of dealing with iTunes and its many failures and switched to Android. My wife still has an iDevice and regularly gripes when they change the interface, move stuff around for no reason and otherwise make the design "better".

My Android phone has no idea about my home PC because it doesn't have to. I don't see iTunes going anywhere, no way in hell I'm going back to the iOS ecosystem. I'm not likely to get another Samsung phone, which is what I have now -- I'll likely just go for the Nexus so I can skip the bloatware.

Re:iTunes drove me to Android in the first place

[MachineShedFred]

I haven't plugged my iPhone into anything iTunes since the iOS 5 release that allowed over-the-air updates and iCloud backup.

iTunes is a complete non-factor, and has been for years.

Windows Phone

[KlomDark]

Strangely, in my little world, I'm seeing a surprising uptake in WIndows Phones lately. Never thought I'd see it coming. It seems people who have been happy with Android are wanting a little more, and are horribly confused by the iPhone's single button interface, and see that Windows Phone 8.1 is easier to figure out than the latest/greatest version of Android.

Just my little ecosystem, correlation does not equal causation, but I'm finding it fascinating. Microsoft might still have some life in it. (Helps that Cricket is now giving away a couple different free Windows phones)

Re:Good luck

[iluvcapra]

Apple is trying everything except the one thing that would actually work - stop price gouging their customers.

It seems to me like everything they do works great. This story kinda sounds like BS, very un-Apple, they've never cared about market share, except in the depths of the Gil Amelio/Mac Clone days, and anyways their actual unit share of sales in the US and other developed markets is increasing.

Everybody just wants mobile to play out like the PC/Mac wars, and for network effects to award the whole pie to the dominant player, but it's just not working out that way. Network effects don't count for much anymore, "ecosystems" aren't as closed as they were, even the Apple one, and the most important applications, the drivers of growth in the IT space, of our era are cross-platform, usually web-centered. Android has a majority of the mobile installed base, but it's a worthless hill to hold. Things have reverted to a mean and traditional branding and product positioning are more important now, you buy from a company you had a good experience with, not the company that's logo-compliant with your box at work.