Those attending the Mobile World Congress, the global event in which mobile phone manufacturers present their novelties, will find the following message: “Dear experts, reconditioning is indeed innovation”. This is a provocative advertisement from the refurbished electronics firm Back Market. Provocative because of the chosen scenario, but also because of the market situation: in 2022, the sale of new mobile phones experienced the biggest drop in its history, falling by 9.2%. The sale of reconditioned, on the other hand, increased more than 10% in the world, according to an analysis carried out by the IDC consultancy.
The national market is no stranger to this trend. "22% of mobiles sold online in Spain are already refurbished, compared to 10% two years ago," says Nathanaël Berbessou, general director of Back Market in Spain. Berbessou attributes the increase in sales to greater consumer confidence in this type of product, but also to its lower price, which can be between 40% and 70% lower. "The reconditioned ones are anti-inflation products because they were manufactured before the prices of raw materials rose," says the head of Back Market in the country.
79% of people who buy a refurbished mobile do so for economic savings, according to a barometer on Refurbished Technology in Spain by CertiDeal. Íñigo Giner, general director in the country of this platform specializing in refurbished iPhones, underlines another interesting result of the barometer: "34% of sales are mobile phones bought for children." On the other hand, Ana Isabel Jiménez Zarco, professor of Economics and Business Studies at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, points out that "iPhones and high-end cell phones are the most successful because they allow many people to acquire devices that, in be new, they couldn't afford it."
Concern for the environment is the second most weighty argument when buying a refurbished car. According to the CertiDeal barometer, 31% of buyers who purchase one of these devices do so to protect the environment or for sustainability. In this sense, Carolina Consolación, professor in the Department of Business Organization at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC), affirms that "consumers have evolved and increasingly value corporate social responsibility and the rule of the three R's : reduce, reuse and recycle”.
The rule of the three Rs is of special interest in electronic devices such as mobiles. “The best thing we can do with them is to extend their useful life because their manufacture requires large amounts of energy and because they require up to 75 different elements, many of them scarce materials and most of them coming from China or controlled African countries. by the Asian giant”, warns Eva Vidal, professor in the Department of Electronic Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC). Vidal points out that between 80% and 90% of the energy consumption of a mobile throughout its useful life comes solely from the manufacturing phase.
On the other hand, Jaqueline Pistoulet, general director in Spain of Smaaart, adds that "to obtain the necessary materials to manufacture a 200-gram mobile, it is necessary to extract 154 kilograms of raw materials and use 56 cubic meters of water." No less important is the problem of electronic waste, "the category of waste that is growing the most in the world," denounces Nathanaël Berbessou.
