It looks as though Apple has courted some Android users to iOS last week, upon the announcement of the new iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S. Gazelle, a consumer electronics recycler reported a slew of Android handsets that were traded in during the iPhone launch weekend, with a 210 percent increase in Samsung handset trade-ins over the last weekend.
On September 20th, Apple’s new iPhone launch day, Gazelle was making five offers per second between 10 and 11 AM ET, which translates to 18,000 people every hour trading in their phones for cash against a new iPhone.
According to a Gazelle rep that spoke to Phandroid, the breakdown of traded-in Samsung devices for the month of September looks like this:
- Samsung Galaxy S: 3% increase
- Samsung Galaxy S2: 16% increase
- Samsung Galaxy S3: 44% increase
- Samsung Galaxy S4: 16% increase
- Samsung Galaxy Note: 3% increase
- Samsung Galaxy Note 2: 9% increase
- Other Samsung device: 10% increase
As for reasons for switching, Gazelle surveyed 3,000 customers and found that 36% were upgrading to an iPhone 5S because of upgrade eligibility, 16% due to the Touch ID sensor. As for the iPhone 5C, 29% were upgrading due to the colorful designs and better camera.
Did you switch or are you considering switching from an Android device to one of the new iPhone models? If so, why? We’d love to know your thoughts.