From TechRadar · · 1m 40s
Broken phones are suddenly worth money
AI is eating the world's memory chips, and your dead phone in a drawer just became a parts supply.
In brief
AI is eating the world's memory chips, and your dead phone in a drawer just became a parts supply. The scrap value of an old phone now sits in its parts, not its working condition, so trading it in beats leaving it in a drawer. Originally reported by TechRadar.
A chip shortage with a side effect
AI demand has drained the supply of memory chips, and the shortage is pushing millions of people to sell phones they had written off.
Scrap is not scrap anymore
Buyers in the repair and refurbishment trade are now bidding for units that used to be treated as worthless. Even damaged handsets carry a price.
“Buyers across the refurbishment and repair industries are competing for parts that were previously considered worthless scrap.”
Prices climbed in Q2
On B-Stock, a large business-to-business used phone marketplace, Apple and Samsung pricing rose in the second quarter of 2026 against the two quarters before it.
Mid-tier overtook the bottom
C-condition phones hit 37.8% of first-half 2026 sales, passing the lowest Grade D tier at 31.6%. The iPhone 17 Pro Max averaged $940 across all conditions.
Old flagships got a bump
Samsung's best sellers were the S23 Ultra, S22 Ultra and S24 Ultra. After the Galaxy S26 landed, a clean S23 Ultra hit $425 in June, its best month of the year.
One bad grade, many good parts
A phone traded in after four years can fail battery testing alone and drop to the bottom tier. Its display, cameras, ports, board and speakers may still be fine.
“A single low-grade device does not necessarily mean every part inside it shares that same poor rating.”
Economics, not conscience
Rising memory prices make salvage labor pay off, and retailers are fattening trade-in offers to keep parts flowing. Whether this cuts e-waste or just reroutes it is unsettled.
“The current trend feels less like a sudden environmental awakening and more like a market correction.”
The takeaway
The scrap value of an old phone now sits in its parts, not its working condition, so trading it in beats leaving it in a drawer.
