A Finnish seller of used smartphones Swaps the situation has changed.
Even last year, the company made a net loss of 24 million euros. On Monday, the CEO visited Kauppalehti’s Talousaamu Jussi Lystimäki says that the company is making a profit right now. You can see Lystimäki’s comments below.
“The investments we have made in previous years, for example, in the logistics systems of factories, have paid off a lot. Now we have accelerated the transition towards them so that we can make profitability and unit economics work. We are currently making a profit every month.”
“This is the game”
Swappie has got a lot of competitors. Today, you can get used phones even from more traditional electronics stores. This is a development that, in Lystimäki’s opinion, must take place.
“The market is such that there are around 700 million iPhones sitting passively in Europe, and only three percent of them move forward in the market to be refurbished, i.e. around 20 million per year.”
In Swappie’s vision, the market for used equipment will rise to 20-40 percent, i.e. tenfold, in the same way as car sales.
“This is the game. We optimize so that when we make products in the factories with precise automation and consistent quality, we win with them. We can multiply our volume without having to invest wildly going forward.”
“European operators don’t really have this ability yet,” Lystimäki says on Talousaaamu.
Consumers are especially interested in two things about used smartphones. The first factor is the price, because the resale value of used iPhones remains relatively high, says Lystimäki.
According to Lystimäki, the second is quality and trust that a high-tech product like a phone does not break down immediately after purchase.
The attractiveness comes from the fact that used devices are about 40 percent cheaper than new ones, but the difference between the latest iPhone model and a few years old model is very small.
”Apple has done a good job in this market”, says Lystimäki in Talousaamu.
You can watch Jussi Lystimäki’s interview and Monday’s Economic Morning in full from here.