Is there a concern that the recovery price rises and will buy a new cell phone for the old chip? Reporter research found that -
Old cell phone recycling, not just "dismantling"
Recently, news of the increase in the price of used mobile phone recycling has raised concerns. Consumers have found that the price of old mobile phones in some models has increased over the previous year, and even some old mobile phones that cannot be turned on can be recovered for payment. It has been analysed that this is due to the tight supply of traditional storage chips in the market and the re-use of stored chips in old mobile phones, which has led to high recycling prices。
Consumers are confused: will they buy new phones with old chips? Is a recycled memory chip that leaks the privacy of the previous owner of the phone
A journalist survey found that older mobile phones were not simply “dismantling” for reuse after they had been recycled。
New phone with old chips
A large number of used mobile phone recycling shops were assembled at the zhonglong mall near the shanghai railway station. A number of shop owners indicated that the recycled mobile phones were not detached, but treated according to different circumstances。
According to industry sources, in accordance with the national standard gb/t 45656-2025 classification of the availability of second-hand electronic products, second-hand electronic products, including mobile phones, are divided into four levels of availability, corresponding to different types of reuse, such as direct reuse, second-hand sale, leasing, renovation, downgrade use, use of accessories, dismantling and recycling, material regeneration, environmentally friendly disposal, etc. In fact, a significant proportion of used mobile phones are recycled and not removed and reused, but replaced by “identity” of second-hand mobile phones。
“as long as the price is right, even old mobile phones, which were listed 10 years ago, have large consumer groups at home and abroad.” the industry has revealed that only used mobile phones that are difficult to repair or are of low value after repair will be dismantled, “because the value of dismantling is generally lower than that of the whole machine. So, second-hand mobile phones that can continue to be used are not usually dismantled. Some recycling platforms are almost non-dismantling, and the majority of recovered mobile phones are in secondary circulation.”
In the current round of recycling of used mobile phones, some of those that could not be turned on were recovered on a reimbursable basis, indeed linked to the chip shortage. Only, the chip is not a mobile phone product, but rather relatively low-end smart products such as smart door locks, cameras, early learning machines, etc. Land mine, a representative of the shanghai city people's congress and secretary-general of the shanghai city information services industry association, explained that, for some time now, chip companies have increased the deployment of high-end ai chips, resulting in a decrease in the supply of traditional medium- and low-end chips. However, some low-end smart product producers have planned to produce, “where the shell is ready, the chip is missing. If there is no suitable chip, the shell is subject to extinction. Therefore, these enterprises turn to chips that can be used twice, including chips from old mobile phones that are compatible with new products.”
This is why, in this wave of “old mobile phone price hikes”, the price increases are mostly for old mobile phones。
There is a low probability that old chips will be loaded into new mobile phones for reuse. The old chip could not meet the functional needs of the new mobile phone because of the extreme integrity of the cell phone. Industry analysis: “the use of recycled storage chip refurbishment or repair products by mobile phone maintenance providers does not preclude the sale of refurbishment machines, but the possibility of large-scale “new” production is not significant. New functions cannot run with old chips; mobile phones that can use old chips, often low-end products, have limited profits and enterprises are less motivated to produce.”
Will personal information leak
When old phones are recycled, consumers are also concerned about whether they can be eliminated once they are returned to the plantInformation leakI don't know. As a result of reminders, data were retained even “rehabilitated”。
“it is true that the original data from the `restoration of plant settings' mobile phones can be restored by technical means. However, it is not rigorous to speak of possible harm independently of actual risk.” lure gave the consumer a "concertation pill": "for example, you left footprints on your way home, and outlaws could find your home by tracking footprints. But are footprints followed every time? Or, in order to avoid being followed, you won't go out?"
He explained that there was a technical threshold for restoring the original data on mobile phones and that it would be labour- and time-consuming. Recoverers generally do not intentionally restore data because they cannot determine the value of data recovered at cost. Of course, users who perform special jobs or have special confidentiality requirements for cell phone data should be careful when disposing of used phones and avoid being targeted by others with ulterior motives。
“in general, mobile phones that have performed `restoration of plant settings' do not run a significant risk of leaking information.” according to lande, the public need not be misled by extreme circumstances, “when i personally eliminate old mobile phones, i also operate `rehabilitating plant set-ups' and then recycle them to the market recycling platform without additional disposal.”
Journalists visited the market and found that recycling platforms were more sensitive to personal information that might remain on mobile phones than individual recyclers. On the one hand, these platforms do not collect “non-openable” and “non-exitable personal accounts” phones, as it is not possible to identify them. On the other hand, some platforms use specialized software to clear the remaining data from mobile phones in front of consumers。
At one of the “face for recovery” sites, staff demonstrated “deep clean-up” to journalists: after the mobile phone had withdrawn from the user account, it operated “restoration of plant settings”, then entered the recycling network point account, used the clean-up software developed by the platform, used the software to wipe mobile phones multiple times, and eventually removed all data。
“the process shall take place once at the recycling site and once at the platform operations centre.” staff stated that the rationale for the depth removal was to fill the cell phone memory with invalid data and to cover the potential retention of user data. Since then, even when mobile phones have been technically recovered, only invalid data have been shown。
Is the recovery price going up
Journalists visited the market and found that the recycling price of old mobile phones was far from as high as the social platform claimed, and that even some models that had been named “crazy” had fallen. A number of mobile phone recyclers said that they were more open to new mobile phones, “because consumers also prefer new ones”
However, according to some media sources, the recovery price of old mobile phones will increase. Is this true? Professionals and practitioners agree that it is normal to have price fluctuations in second-hand trading markets, but it is unrealistic to simply advocate price increases。
Lande said that the increase in the price of this round of used mobile phone recycling had largely ended, as determined by the market supply-demand relationship, “after completion of the existing production tasks, downstream producers will adjust their production programmes to avoid falling back into chip shortages. In the case of upstream chip producers, the actual demand for downstream markets will also be considered. After short-term supply and demand mismatches, market supply returns to equilibrium.”
The “recycling” staff and the mobile phone recyclers at the circumpolar mall also indicated that, apart from the collection-level products, the recovery price for old phones has been following the pattern of “the longer the machine, the lower the recovery price”. According to the recovery platform and other secondary trading platform data, the increase in some cell phone model recycling prices has not changed the pattern of “the longer the machine model, the lower the recovery price”。
Even more to be feared is the exaggerated increase in each price increase. According to wang xiaodong, some collectors, or from the media, overbroaded the base figure for the sake of eyeballs. For example, the recovery price of an old machine has increased by $10 to $20, a 100 per cent increase from the media; it has increased to $30, a 200 per cent increase ... “but in absolute terms, the recovery price of old mobile phones has remained low.”
