Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that Apple is preparing to roll out an iPhone trade-in program in China that will allow customers to trade-in old devices in return for store credit. Foxconn will be handling the program for Apple.
Whereas Brightstar provides backend resale support for Apple’s U.S. trade-in initiative, Foxconn is slated to handle the Chinese version. Unlike its U.S. counterpart, Apple’s Chinese trade-in program only applies to iPhones.
The report says Apple Store employees will evaluate the condition of the iPhone being offered for trade-in, and will then sell the hardware directly to Foxconn, with Apple never directly taking ownership of the items.
Foxconn will then refurbish the iPhones, and sell them through its websites eFeihu and FLNet, as well as Alibaba’s Taobao store. Foxconn is reported to be in talks to sell refurbished Apple products in physical stores.
Foxconn may also process trade-ins online, much like Apple’s U.S. trade-in program.
While Apple does not announce specific sales numbers for the iPhone, IDC estimates sales, which were previously slow in China, spiked 42% in the 2014 calendar year to 46.3 million. That’s represents approximately 24% of the phones Apple sold globally during that period.
A recent report indicated Apple may soon begin accepting non-Apple handsets, such as Android devices, as trade-ins to be used toward the purchase of an iPhone.
