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Surprise: iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus launch led to huge trade-in surge in September

Published Oct 1st, 2014 5:50PM EDT
iPhone 6 Smartphone Trade-ins
Image: Zach Epstein, BGR

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Buying a smartphone in 2014 is an expensive endeavor. Even on a two-year contract, you’re still going to spend around $200 for a flagship device from Apple, Samsung or any of the other major vendors, but there’s one easy way to counteract the bite out of your bank account: trade-ins. A week before the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus officially launched, we published an article about the best trade-in deals in order to help Apple fans get their new phones as cheaply as possible.

Now that September is over, let’s look at how the launch of the iPhone 6 affected the trade-in market.

TRAITORS: Android users are deserting in droves ahead of iPhone 6 launch, trade-ins up 200%

According to a survey taken by gadget recycling comparison site CompareMyMobile, 88.18% of upgraders looking to purchase an iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in September were trading in old iPhones. By comparison, when the Galaxy S5 launched in April, only 18.75% of upgraders were recycling Samsung handsets. In other words, iPhone owners are much more likely to upgrade than Galaxy owners.

For the entire month of September, CompareMyMobile reports that 51.48% of people trading in their old phones were planning to pick up an iPhone 6 or 6 Plus. A majority of upgraders traded in an iPhone 5, but the HTC One (M8) and the Galaxy S4 topped the non-iOS trade-in charts for the month.

Based on the initial iPhone 6 sales figures, this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, but it helps put the success of the launch into even greater perspective.

Jacob Siegal
Jacob Siegal Associate Editor

Jacob Siegal is Associate Editor at BGR, having joined the news team in 2013. He has over a decade of professional writing and editing experience, and helps to lead our technology and entertainment product launch and movie release coverage.