Apple Inc announced its recycling plan in the Chinese mainland market, enabling consumers to trade in their old Apple devices bought via official channels in the market for Apple's latest products, domestic news portal sina.com.cn reported Tuesday.
The company could not be reached for comment on this by press time. But a customer service staff of an Apple store in Shanghai confirmed the trade-in program with the Global Times on Tuesday, saying that consumers can enjoy the recycling service in Apple's stores.
"Apple has not set an expiration date for this recycling plan," said the customer service staff.
The old products are not required to be within the quality guarantee period, and the depreciation prices for iPhone and iPad are based on their exact specifications and the extent of the damage on the product surface, according to the staff.
Apple has seen a soaring market in China in recent years, with its iPhone accounting for 25.4 percent of market share in China's urban areas between November 2014 and January 2015, according to UK market survey firm Kantar Worldpanel in March.
"Apple will unlikely see significant growth in its market share in China through this recycling plan, as consumers will not be willing to accept Apple's much lower depreciation price,"Li Mingliang, a senior research fellow of Haitong Securities, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
In addition, Apple may find it hard dealing with the recycled old phones, as there is no smooth channel for Apple to sell its refurbished products due to the high replacement rate among consumers in the mobile phone market, said Li.
Li noted that Apple's latest move will not have a huge impact on the handset industry either and doubted other competitors will follow Apple's suit.
"Xiaomi does not have a similar recycling program planned for the near future," a marketing manager of Xiaomi, China's top smartphone brand, surnamed Xu, told the Global Times Tuesday.
