One of the biggest advantages of buying an iPhone over Android has been always been their ability to hold their resale value better. It’s no secret that those with an Apple smartphone in their pocket wil find its still worth a decent sum of money years after it was first purchased.
The same couldn’t be said for Android devices with phones from the likes of Samsung and Google depreciating at a much faster rate.
However, it seems things might be changing with the gap between Android and iPhone slowly closing. That’s according to a new report from the team at Sellcell who say that whilst the value of the iPhones still remains high, Samsung devices are losing less value with each new Galaxy S release.
For example, Sellcell’s data shows that the Galaxy S22 lost 66.7 percent of its value during its 2022 launch year, while the S23 lost 61.1% of its value over the first 12 months.
The S24 is doing very well in comparison. Six months post-launch, it is only seeing 50.4% depreciation; an improvement of 3.7% compared to the S23.
Of course, the iPhone is still king when it comes to trade-in. The iPhone 15 lost just 33.2 percent of its value during its year on sale but Samsung is definitely starting to catch up.
“Despite Apple’s long-standing reputation for leading the market in value retention, the gap is narrowing,” explained Sellcell.
“Samsung’s Galaxy series, particularly with the release of the S24, has started to close in on Apple’s dominance. The S24 has shown stronger value retention after six months compared to its predecessors, the S23 and S22, marking a notable improvement in Samsung’s depreciation performance.”
With the new iPhone 16 having just launched and a Samsung Galaxy S25 expected to be revealed in the coming months, it will be interesting if the gap continues to close.
“If this trend continues, with Apple’s handsets depreciating more while Samsung’s depreciate less, it could be only a matter of three to four years before Samsung finally passes Apple,” Sellcell added.
Watch this space but it could finally be very good news for Galaxy owners who want to trade-in and upgrade to something new.
