iPhones Account for About Half the Worldwide Refurbished Smartphone Market ⇥ arstechnica.com

Scharon Harding, Ars Technica:

Selling a new smartphone is the hardest it has been in years. Rising device costs, limited differences between model upgrades, and economic and environment-related desires to keep electronics alive as long as possible are making people turn to refurbished phones, data shared this week by analyst Counterpoint found. And if someone is buying a refurbished phone, there’s a good chance it’s an iPhone.

Quite the counterargument to the longstanding narrative that Apple kneecaps older phones to encourage upgrades. The reverse is more true: Apple wants to support users with older models because an increasing part of its revenue picture is services and, as Joanna Stern wrote last month, “[e]ven a refurbished iPhone means a blue bubble”.