There is a lively trade in used smartphones now that mobile service providers have opened up the second-hand market.
T-ecophone, an online second-hand phone market SK Telecom opened in July last year, had dealt in a total of 40,000 handsets as of March this year. KT also launched the Olleh Green Phone service in March in a bid to lure customers, dealing chiefly in long-term bestsellers like Samsung's Galaxy S and Apple's iPhone 3GS.
Most trade for about W200,000 (US$1=W1,136), and some for less than W100,000. Telecoms guarantee quality and safe trade, which is the main factor that gets consumers to open their purses on these online shops.
In case of SK Telecom, professional assessors are rating used phones on a scale of A+ to C, based on their appearance and condition. KT classifies used phones into "good" and "bad."
"When we assess cell phones, we focus on 20 categories, such as power supply, display and appearance," a cell phone assessor for SK said. "If you want to get as high a price as possible when you sell your phone, you should protect it with a screen film and case."
The trade is bringing forgotten old phones out of the closet. According to data by market researcher Recon Analytics last year, Korean consumers replace their phones once every 26.9 months on average, about two times as fast as Japanese (46.3 months) and Italians (51.5 months). In other words, each Korean consumer throws a phone in the closet every two years.
But selling them is good for the environment because it saves resources. Mobile phones contain rare earth elements, of which there are only small reserves in the world, as well as precious metals. One mobile phone contains 11 kinds of rare earth elements like lithium, radium and zirconium, in addition to gold, silver and copper.
While a ton of natural ore yields a mere 4 g of gold, a ton of used cellphones yields 400 g. It would also be possible to extract 3 kg of silver, 131 kg of copper, 13 kg of tin and 5 kg of lithium.
