Old iPhones are in Pretty Decent Shape

We’ve seen what happens to old iPhones when Apple customers buy a new iPhone. We showed that about 85% of old iPhones are re-used somehow - sold or traded in, passed along to a friend or family member, or kept as a spare or backup.

Our data on iPhone owners shows why. iPhones’ useful lives are longer than their typical US ownership, so they tend to hold their value. We looked at the condition of the display and the battery, two of the most important factors in continuing to use an existing smartphone. For customers that upgraded from a previous iPhone, four-fifths have a display that is either “perfect” or “scratched but usable” (Chart 1). Only 6% of previous phones had a display that was unusable.