Gazelle Chief Gadget Officer looks at resale trends, sees the end of the iPod
Anthony Scarsella is the Chief Gadget Officer at Gazelle, the online equipment repurposing company. Every quarter Scarsella publishes his reCommerce Report, a look at trends that the company is seeing in terms of devices submitted to Gazelle for recycling and resale. Among the fascinating stats in the Q1 2013 report is that the company saw a huge increase of almost 80 percent in iPod trades in December and January, leading Scarsella to speculate that we're beginning to see the "end of the iPod."
What's killing Apple's music player? To quote Scarsella, "When first unveiled in October 2001, many were astonished with the ability to have over 1,000 songs sitting in your pocket. Fast-forward almost 12 years later and we have the iPhone, iPad, iCloud, streaming, 4G and WiFi. Although the iPod is still around, the smartphone has become an easy replacement for the basic MP3 player from Apple."
The trend of high iPod trades has "remained fairly steady since February," indicating that as more smartphones are activated, more users are looking to Gazelle and similar companies to get cash for equipment they no longer need.
One other fascinating piece of information is that resale value of the iPhone leapt to record levels -- even for broken equipment -- and that devices from other manufacturers like Samsung are also beginning to hold their value over time. That wasn't the case several years ago, when a broken iPhone was often more valuable than a working Android device of similar age.
