Suddenly going viral, "one price a day"! Someone traded in 7 old phones to get a used iPhone 11.

Recently, affected by multiple factors such as a global shortage of storage chips, recyclers in various places told reporters that the used mobile phone recycling market has entered a “hot season.” Recycling prices have generally gone up. What used to be “electronic clutter” is now a “hot commodity” in the hands of residents. Xin Hui, who runs a mobile phone recycling business in the Huaqiangbei market in Shenzhen, told reporters that since the 2025 National Day holiday, the market for used phones has noticeably warmed up, and at present, overall prices have risen to about three times.

Used phones are seeing a “price surge”

One price per day

“If it’s a phone, we’ll buy it back—regardless of whether it can power on. Even if it’s completely broken, it can still be sold for money.” The person in charge of a mobile phone recycling store, Mr. Yu, told reporters that he has been in this line of work for ten years, and the recent market trend has surprised him too. “In the past month, prices have increased very quickly. An OPPO R9, which has been on the market for ten years, had a buyback price of only 20—30 yuan in the same period last year; now it’s up to 150—180 yuan.”

Some netizens said that they sold two old phones that couldn’t power on for 308 yuan. Others said that the old phone they sold for 50 yuan in December last year is now up to 130 yuan. There are also netizens sharing that they used seven old phones to get back one secondhand iPhone 11 phone.

Mr. Yang, a used mobile phone recycler in Jinan, has also been busy recently receiving consumers who come to ask for quotes. “Many residents specifically dig out their old phones at home to sell them. Some bring five or six phones at once in one go, and the cash they get is close to a thousand yuan.” Mr. Yang explained that the buyback price of used phones is also like gold—“one price per day.” Sometimes it’s adjusted even within half a day. Compared with the same period last year, prices have risen by two to three times, and the larger the storage capacity, the more valuable it is.

As for the flow of used phones, Mr. Yang said that currently, they mainly buy back Android phones from brands such as Huawei, OPPO, and vivo, and the whole units are uniformly shipped to places like Shenzhen.

Chip price hikes are the core driving force

Don’t forget personal privacy when turning waste into treasure

Why did the buyback prices of used phones suddenly skyrocket? “This round of price increases mainly depends on how in-demand the chips are and the size of the memory. The underlying reason is that the AI field has developed rapidly, and demand for storage products is strong.” Liu, a veteran sales professional for electronic equipment, told reporters that the demand for storage in AI servers is eight times that of ordinary servers. Moreover, the order scale is large and the cycle is long. At the same time, major manufacturers such as Samsung, Micron, and SK hynix, to pursue higher profits, have shifted their capacity to high-end AI storage products such as HBM, cutting back or even suspending production of traditional products like DDR4. This has led to a shortage of consumer storage products, further pushing prices up.

Liu explained that compared with brand-new chips, the price of chips salvaged from disassembled devices is only 40%—60%, and there is plenty of available stock on hand, so there’s no need to wait in line. They have clear advantages in terms of cost and supply.

According to data released by TrendForce (CINNO Research) in February this year, the cumulative increase in spot prices for storage chips over the past three months has already exceeded 300%. It is expected that in the first quarter of 2026, the price increase of DRAM (memory) will reach 80% to 95%.

Some viewpoints believe that against this backdrop, salvaged storage chips have become the best solution for downstream users. After professional inspection, dust removal, performance repair, and compatibility testing, these salvaged chips have very broad uses: they can be used for memory expansion and fault repair in older phones and laptops, or to replace damaged original storage modules; they can supply smart hardware manufacturers such as those making smart door locks, monitoring cameras, in-car central control units, and industrial control motherboards, serving as low-cost core storage components; they can also be adapted for niche digital products such as entry-level tablets, learning devices, and game consoles to meet basic operating needs; and some high-quality salvaged chips can even be used for inventory expansion in small servers and cloud terminal devices.

It should be noted that used phones and computers contain a large amount of sensitive personal information, such as photos, contact lists, and payment records stored on the device. In non-regular recycling workshops, deleted data may be restored through technical means, creating risks of information leakage.

If you want to sell an old phone, it’s recommended that you thoroughly clear your personal information as much as possible by restoring factory settings, repeatedly writing useless data over it, and so on. Or choose a legitimate recycling platform for the transaction to ensure that while you “turn waste into treasure,” you also add a “safety lock” for privacy and security.

Source: Qilu Evening News, China Blue News, Nanfang? New Express? (New Quick News), Jiemian? News

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