Data shows that in the past five years, the mainland has produced an average of more than 400 million waste mobile phones every year; During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the total number of idle mobile phones is expected to reach 6 billion. Where do all the old phones go? Where is the recycling blockage stuck? How to promote the standardized and healthy development of the recycling industry?
As one of the key tasks of the "Consumption Promotion Year", the trade-in of consumer goods has become one of the hot topics this year. After the "renewal" of consumer goods, the recycling of a large number of old products, especially mobile phones and other electronic products, has also attracted much attention.
Some of the second-hand mobile phones sold at ATRenew's Beijing Huiju Center store. Photo by China Economic Net reporter Yang Xiufeng
In recent years, with the acceleration of smartphone updates and iterations, a large number of old mobile phones have been eliminated or idle by users. According to the research report of China Research Institute Puhua, during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the total number of idle mobile phones in the mainland is expected to reach 6 billion; According to data from the Penguin Think Tank, the potential value of second-hand mobile phones in mainland China exceeds 600 billion yuan. The huge base has created a huge supply and development space for the mobile phone recycling market.
After years of development, the mobile phone recycling industry in mainland China has entered a period of development opportunities, and various recycling platforms and recycling models have been emerging. However, at the same time, the mobile phone recycling market is still facing problems such as imperfect standard system, insufficient comprehensive processing capacity, and lack of user trust, and its development needs to be standardized urgently. How to make use of the resource value of waste mobile phones, avoid the risks and hidden dangers brought by them, and promote the high-quality development of the industry? Recently, the reporter conducted a visit and investigation on this.
The market space needs to be tapped
According to industry insiders, at present, the recycling of waste mobile phones is mainly in two categories: resale and environmental degradation. Those with good quality and no damage can be directly sold as second-hand mobile phones; Dismantling of poor quality and serious damage or partial functional damage as spare parts, or refurbished and sold; Severely damaged or old models are recycled and used directly to refine metal resources.
After the standardized treatment of waste mobile phones, it is of great significance to promote the development of green, low-carbon and circular development. It is estimated that about 25 kilograms of carbon emission reduction can be achieved for each second-hand mobile phone transaction.
Guo Zhanqiang, secretary-general of the China Association of Circular Economy, said that the association has visited the second-hand mobile phone recycling and sales market, the average life of a mobile phone is about 2.2 years, in the past five years, the mainland has produced an average of more than 400 million waste mobile phones per year, but only about 10% of the new recycling channels such as second-hand idle platforms have been involved in recycling, and more than half of them are idle at home.
In recent years, due to the significant improvement in the quality and durability of smartphones, as well as the change in consumer habits, many users are willing to buy second-hand mobile phones from widely recognized brands in the market. Xu Gang, a college student, told reporters with a new iPhone14, "95 percent of new mobile phones are about 2,000 yuan cheaper than new mobile phones, and they are very cost-effective."
The "Public Action Manual for the Recycling and Utilization of Waste Mobile Phones" issued by the China Association of Circular Economy pointed out that promoting the circulation and trading of second-hand mobile phones can be economically compensated for individual users, and for the society, in addition to environmental and resource benefits, the recycling and trading of second-hand mobile phones also have huge economic benefits.
Attracted by considerable profits and a broad market, more and more companies are joining this track. In recent years, recycling companies such as Xianyu, Zhuan Zhuan, Ai Recycling, Huibao, and Tongchengbang have taken advantage of the Internet to break through the information barrier between users and enterprises, and promote the recycling and resale of idle mobile phones. In addition, mobile phone brands and sales channels are also driving the development of the mobile phone recycling market, encouraging users to sell their old mobile phones through strategies such as trade-in.
"We guarantee that the recycled second-hand mobile phones can be sold directly, with an average price of more than 1,000 yuan." Zheng Liqun, CEO of the same city gang, told reporters that from the perspective of platform transactions, the preferences of users who buy second-hand mobile phones are different, but the overall recognition is very high.
Zhang Pu, head of the operation of Xianyu digital electronics industry, said that Xianyu relies on the "Internet + recycling" model to provide mobile phone digital users with door-to-door recycling, store recycling, mail recycling and other services, among them, door-to-door recycling covers 100 cities, which can achieve face-to-face quality inspection and face-to-face collection. In the past year, the circular orders of many categories on the Xianyu platform have shown a growth trend. Among them, the circular orders generated by mobile phones increased by 17% year-on-year, and from the perspective of people, users and young people in the eastern region are the main force of idle circulation transactions, and young people under the age of 35 account for more than 65%.
In the "Fruit Powder Master" store in Beijing Daxing Greenland Colorful City Shopping Center, the reporter saw second-hand mobile phones marked with brand models, fineness and other information neatly stacked in display cabinets. The store staff told reporters, "For second-hand mobile phones, we have our own recycling evaluation standards, and we will also use some small programs of professional second-hand platforms for evaluation." Good quality second-hand mobile phones will be sold directly, and those that can no longer be sold will be sent to the headquarters for unified processing."
In addition to recycling platforms, some mobile phone brands are also an important part of the circulation of second-hand mobile phones, and many merchants seek to expand sales opportunities through trade-in.
Liu Xiaojun, ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) Director of Honor Device Co., Ltd., said that in 2023, the company recycled hundreds of thousands of devices, and this number is still growing in terms of trends.
In a Huawei store in Beijing, a salesperson told reporters that when selling new mobile phones, users will be encouraged to trade in the old for the new, and the recycling price of the old mobile phone will refer to the evaluation standards of the cooperative platform. In the past two years, the number of consumers participating in the trade-in has continued to increase.
Wang Yongliang, CEO of ATRenew Group, said, "Unlike the high market penetration rate of second-hand houses and second-hand cars, the second-hand mobile phone industry started late in mainland China and is still an industry with a low penetration rate. A lot of second-hand equipment is idle, has not entered the recycling and recirculation channels, and there are still a lot of blank markets waiting to be tapped."
In March this year, the State Council issued the "Action Plan for Promoting Large-scale Equipment Renewal and Consumer Goods Trade-in", which clearly proposed to improve the recycling network of waste products and equipment, and accelerate the development of the "replacement + recycling" logistics system and new model; Support the circulation and trading of second-hand commodities and promote the standardization of second-hand electronic product transactions. Industry insiders said that this policy will further stimulate the expansion of the second-hand mobile phone market, and trade-in will become an important driving force for the development of the second-hand mobile phone recycling market.
There are still blockages in the recycling system
Compared with the number of mobile phones and the scrap rate, the recycling rate of mobile phones in mainland China is still low. Wang Yongliang pointed out that the traditional second-hand mobile phone market is mainly self-employed, and the recycling channels are relatively scattered, and there is a lot of room for improving circulation efficiency. For users, due to the asymmetry of information in the recycling process, the lack of unified quality inspection and pricing standards, time-consuming and labor-intensive bargaining, and concerns about data security and privacy leakage, users' willingness to recycle is low.
In Zheng Liqun's view, the expulsion of bad money is the biggest obstacle to the benign development of the second-hand mobile phone industry, for example, some "scalpers" take unfair competition to buy and sell second-hand mobile phones, which interferes with the normal market order and cannot protect the privacy and security of users. Since the origin of the phone cannot be verified, the risk to the user's property increases accordingly.
Although many "regular troops" have joined this track in recent years, there are still many pain points in second-hand mobile phone trading. "Due to the non-standardization of transactions, there is an information gap between buyers and sellers, and the opacity of transactions through some channels makes it difficult to build trust. From the perspective of enterprises, although the second-hand business is good, it is a slow business and a hard business. Huang Wei, CEO of Zhuan Zhuan Group, said frankly.
Some of the second-hand mobile phones sold in the group's Beijing Xitieying store. Photo by China Economic Net reporter Yang Xiufeng
Liu Xiaojun said that at present, some users have a shallow understanding of mobile phone recycling, many old mobile phone owners are "reluctant to sell", and only a small number of users choose to recycle or trade in old ones on the platform.
The reporter randomly interviewed more than 10 users who bought new mobile phones in a brand mobile phone store located in a large shopping mall, and when faced with the question of whether they were ready to resell the old mobile phones, only two said that they had put their mobile phones on the Zhuanzhuan, Xianyu and Jingdong recycling platforms.
Yang Yang, a user in his 40s, told reporters that his family has saved more than 10 waste mobile phones, "It is too troublesome to send them to offline recycling points, and online transactions have to be packaged and expressed, and they can't be sold much in the end, so I am too lazy to toss."
On the Black Cat complaint platform, as many as tens of thousands of complaints about second-hand mobile phones focus on the inconsistency between the test report and the actual situation of the product. For example, if you buy a flawless second-hand mobile phone, but there are slight defects after being tested by professional equipment, or the actual transaction price of the used mobile phone is quite different from the pre-estimated price.
After testing, the recycling price of one of the reporter's old mobile phones was 810 yuan in the evaluation of the Zhuan Zhuan applet, and it was only 575 yuan when it was evaluated by the clerk on the spot in the offline store. Regarding the price difference, He Jiahuan, manager of Zhuan Zhuan Group's Beijing Xitieying store, said: "Offline stores used blue light equipment to detect slight scratches on the edge of the mobile phone and the camera, which affected the price assessment. ”
According to a number of interviewed enterprise staff, it is difficult to see some subtle scratches due to the lack of professional tools when users estimate by themselves, and scratches are an important factor affecting the valuation of mobile phones.
Liu Yuanju, a researcher at the Shanghai Academy of Finance and Law, said that there are various mobile phone models, and the configuration is also very different, and the situation of non-standard second-hand products is even more complicated, and it is difficult for users to judge the quality of the product. Establishing a mature identification system is essential to optimize the recycling process for used mobile phones. For example, the "official inspection" service is launched to conduct strict quality inspection of mobile phones, determine the degree of newness of mobile phones according to factors such as function and condition, and issue quality inspection reports, and finally give reasonable market pricing.
Compared with the blockages and risks in the transaction process, data security and privacy protection are issues that many users are more concerned about. Yang Yang told reporters that most of the idle mobile phones at home are stored in important photos, address books, chat records on social platforms, transaction records on shopping platforms, etc., "If you can't completely clear these private information, I am worried that it will bring trouble to myself and my family."
Xu Feng is a domestic brand mobile phone user who changes his mobile phone once every 2 years on average. "My old mobile phone is idle at home, and every time I change to a new mobile phone, there are always some materials and data that cannot be completely copied to the new mobile phone, and some fragmented information may also cause privacy risks."
Zheng Liqun, who has 5 years of experience in data recovery, explained, "For example, if the ID number is stored in one place and the mobile phone number is stored in the other place, these two pieces of information are useless on their own, but if they are combined, they may be used to obtain the user's bank account password." Therefore, when we do the shredding of the privacy data of second-hand mobile phones, we will indiscriminately shred the fragmented information."
Xu Guangjian, a professor at the Institute of Public Finance and Public Policy at the School of Public Administration at Renmin University of Chinese, believes that nowadays, mobile phones are not only a communication tool, but also associated with users' financial, identity and other information. If information security issues can be regulated, the second-hand mobile phone market will expand greatly.
In view of the privacy and security protection issues, relevant enterprises are actively exploring to ensure that the information in the user's old mobile phone is not leaked. In addition to face-to-face privacy clearance for users, ATRenew Group will also conduct in-depth privacy cleaning on old mobile phones and send privacy clearance reports to users after passing quality inspection and grading in the back-end operation center.
Liu Xiaojun said that Honor's recyclers have a section dedicated to privacy clearance. Some recyclers have also independently developed a data removal system for second-hand electronic products to effectively protect user privacy.
"Xianyu will carry out data cleaning twice for digital products such as recycled mobile phones, providing reliable guarantee for user information security." Zhang Pu said.
Liu Rui, director of the Institute of Ecology and Environment of the Yangtze River Delta Research Institute, suggested that relevant standards and specifications for the removal of information on second-hand mobile phones and other electronic products should be studied and formulated to ensure the personal privacy of users and the security of transaction data.
Multi-party efforts to solve pain points
In recent years, the field of second-hand mobile phone recycling has attracted more and more attention, but due to the relatively new market, the relevant policies and regulations are not perfect, especially in the construction of industry standardization. How to protect the interests of users while maintaining the development vitality of enterprises is a common issue facing regulators and enterprises.
As a practitioner in the second-hand industry, Huang Wei is well aware of the blockages of second-hand transactions and the pain points of users, "I hope that through the improvement of services and the establishment of standards, we can further accelerate the standardization and transparency of the industry, and continuously improve the consumption experience, transaction trust and security of users."
Liu Yuanju believes that the standardization and development of the second-hand mobile phone recycling industry is mainly based on the natural attributes of second-hand transactions - non-standard and trust, and it is necessary to promote the healthy development of the industry through the joint efforts of all parties. In 2023, the China Thrift Industry Association issued two group standards, "Quality Grading and "Leader" Evaluation Requirements for Second-hand Goods Retail Services" and "Basic Requirements for the Capabilities of Second-hand Goods (Second-hand) Appraisal Institutions", respectively, to formulate industry standards for enterprises engaged in second-hand business and second-hand appraisal; In 2023, a series of standards for recycling mobile communication terminals drafted by multiple platforms will be approved and released. The standardized development and standardization of the second-hand trading industry, including second-hand mobile phones, has taken an important step forward.
The "Action Plan for Promoting Large-scale Equipment Renewal and Trade-in of Consumer Goods" also makes clear requirements for promoting the standardization of second-hand electronic product transactions, and proposes to guide second-hand electronic product distribution enterprises to establish an information security management system and an information technology service management system, and study and formulate grading standards for the availability of second-hand electronic products.
"There is a long way to go to establish the standardization of the second-hand industry, and this process requires the joint participation and efforts of practitioners." Wang Yongliang said.
Yan Miao, deputy secretary-general of the China Thrift Industry Association, said that transparency and standardization are the key to the development of the industry, "although companies such as Zhuan Zhuan and Aihuishou are trying to formulate enterprise and industry standards, but in practice, there will be a gap between human measurement and machine measurement, resulting in users questioning the quality grading, appraisal and valuation of second-hand trading platforms." Enterprises should establish a more transparent and standardized operation system in terms of recycling assessment and after-sales guarantee."
It is not easy to formulate scientific and reasonable quality grading standards. Taking Zhuan Zhuan as an example, the platform's quality inspection of second-hand mobile phones includes 404 processes, involving 75 major items such as function, condition, and whether there is water ingress. Previously, scratches were divided into five levels: none, subtle, slight, noticeable, and severe. "If the division is too fine, it will be difficult to judge and confuse when distinguishing between different levels, which will lead to increased errors in evaluation. But if some standards are set too broadly, and there is too much room for the same grade to fluctuate, some buyers will feel unfair, which is a dilemma. Yan Miao said.
To this end, Zhuan Zhuan independently formulates inspection standards, adheres to the "one thing, one inspection" in the quality inspection process, and provides quality assessment for eligible goods, so as to enhance the trust of buyers and sellers, and thus upgrade to create an "official inspection" system. ATRenew Group has established a set of quality inspection and grading standards for second-hand mobile phones, including 38 testing standards and 36 quality inspection grades. The second-hand mobile phones recycled at the front end go through the mid-end quality inspection and grading, and the "non-standard" second-hand mobile phones become "standard products", and then sell them at the terminal.
Huang Wei said that the company is constantly exploring, hoping to gather more strength, accelerate the improvement of the second-hand mobile phone industry standard system, promote healthy competition and rapid development of the industry, so that users can truly sell and buy with confidence.
Liu Xiaojun believes that in the second-hand mobile phone trading and service industry, more and more rules are being clarified, which has brought a significant impetus to the industry's compliant operation and sustainable and healthy development. Relevant enterprises should provide more technical guarantees and protection of rights and interests on issues of concern to users, so that users have no worries. In addition, recyclers should focus on improving automated quality inspection technology, reducing the impact of subjective factors on the accuracy of quality inspection, and promoting the improvement of enterprise operational efficiency, so as to promote the standardized and large-scale development of the industry.
Zhang Pu suggested that we should further promote the standardization of a wider range of second-hand mobile phone digital product trading systems, establish and improve the identification, evaluation, grading and other relevant standards for second-hand items, and improve the corresponding evaluation system and dispute resolution mechanism. At present, Xianyu is actively contacting relevant departments and the upstream and downstream of the industry to explore standardization construction.
"The solution to the pain points of any industry must rely on the evolution of the market itself." Liu Yuanju suggested that at the market level, strengthen the construction of recycling networks and provide convenient and efficient recycling services; strengthen scientific and technological innovation to achieve digital and intelligent recycling; Strengthen the cooperation of the industrial chain, and promote the linkage of manufacturers, sellers, recycling enterprises and reproduction enterprises. At the management level, we will further improve relevant laws and policies, and establish optimized and unified industry standards, including technical standards, quality inspection standards and pricing standards. At the user level, strengthen the publicity and popularization of waste mobile phone recycling, and increase users' willingness to recycle on the premise of avoiding the risk of privacy leakage.
"It is not only necessary to attract users to put idle mobile phones into the second-hand market by regulating the market, but also to strengthen the public welfare publicity of waste utilization and resource conservation, and encourage everyone to actively participate in trade-in and mobile phone recycling through consumption subsidies and other means, so as to awaken the sleeping resources." Xu Guangjian said.
Source: Economic Daily