Counterpoint: Europe’s secondary mobile market faces trade-in challenge

At Retech Days in Berlin, Jan Stryjak from Counterpoint shared compelling insights into Europe’s secondary mobile market. He emphasized that this market relies heavily on the primary market, which fuels trade-ins and refurbished supply. Stryjak presented recent data showing that primary mobile shipments in Europe dropped from 37 million in Q1 2024 to 36 million in Q1 2025, a 3% decline. This dip in new device sales may limit available devices for the secondary market. Despite this quarterly drop, 2024 overall was a strong year for the European primary mobile sector. Counterpoint forecasts steady growth to continue in 2025 and 2026. These trends underline the close connection between both markets and the importance of primary sales in sustaining the circular mobile economy.

A strong year for refurbished sales

According to Counterpoint, the refurbished mobile market in Europe reached approximately 28 million units in 2024. With an estimated average selling price of € 350, the market's total value amounted to around € 9.8 billion. However, Europe’s current trade-in volume falls short of meeting this demand. Of the 28 million devices sold, about 9 million had to be imported to fill the gap. This highlights a key challenge for the region: boosting local trade-ins to reduce reliance on external supply and support a more sustainable, circular mobile ecosystem within the European market.

In addition to the 28 million refurbished units, around 18 million used smartphones were sold without refurbishment in Europe in 2024. This brings the total smartphone market to approximately 210 million units, with secondary devices accounting for 22% of the overall market. Counterpoint highlighted that the UK remains Europe's largest smartphone market, followed by Germany and France. Italy and Spain trail behind with some distance.

Apple iPhone and Samsung dominate the market

Apple strengthened its lead in the European secondary market, growing its share from 66% to 68% last year. Samsung held steady in second place with 24%. Together, they form a dominant 92% share, though other brands, mainly Google, are slowly gaining ground.

Europe’s trade-in percentage remains at 15% just slightly above China but lacking India (26%) and USA (33%). Europeans would like to save their used smartphones as back up or give it a friend or family member.