Used and improved

As a majority of Indians stayed, worked and studied from home the past year, the need for smartphones skyrocketed. This especially gave a fillip to the pre-owned and refurbished smartphones market — from an annual growth rate of 17% pre-pandemic, this segment recorded 23% growth in CY20, according to Techarc data. As per IDC, in CY 2019, around 30-35 million units of pre-owned smartphones were shipped, whereas in CY 2020, this increased to 45 million units.

Techarc further estimates that only 35% of the overall pre-owned (including refurbished) smartphones market is currently organised. Apart from large marketplaces such as Amazon, Flipkart and OLX, several new players such as MobiGarage have entered this space.