A new iPhone increasingly feels out of reach for India's middle class, and the numbers show buyers responding by switching lanes rather than giving up on the phone altogether. Counterpoint Research pegs India's refurbished smartphone market to expand 12% this year, even as sales of brand-new handsets are projected to fall 11%.
Refurbished and pre-owned devices already made up 26% of all smartphone units sold between January and May, climbing from about 23% a year earlier, a shift industry executives trace back to a memory chip crunch that's driven handset prices up by roughly 30-35% on average, and by as much as 70% in some cases, since AI data centre demand began squeezing supply late last year.
The Twist: Buyers Aren't Trading Down
What stands out is that shoppers aren't settling for cheaper, basic phones. Shrey Sardana, co-founder and CEO of refurbished platform Grest, said the price surge from tighter supply chains and costlier components has pushed people toward a different route entirely, one where they still land the exact device they wanted, just through a certified refurbished channel that promises verified quality, honest condition grading and warranty backing.
iPhones lead the pack on his platform, he said, with the 15 and 16, both priced above Rs 40,000, seeing the strongest pull. His buyer base spans widely too, from those spending as little as Rs 15,000 to others dropping over Rs 1 lakh.
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Financing And A Small But Growing Organised Market
Growth is sharpest at the top: phones priced above Rs 45,000 are seeing nearly 40% year-on-year growth in the refurbished space, per Sardana, against roughly 11% for the wider premium segment, even as total smartphone shipments barely move. EMI financing is doing a lot of the work behind this, covering an estimated 40-50% of iPhone purchases in India and making a premium device feel affordable on a monthly basis rather than as one lump sum. The same appetite is spilling into iPads and MacBooks too, as students and young professionals look for a way into Apple's ecosystem without new-device pricing.
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Even so, India's organised refurbished market remains tiny, sitting at just 4% the size of the primary new-phone market, according to FDM CCS Insight, with 85% of second-hand transactions still happening informally through peer-to-peer sellers and local shops, leaving significant room for certified players to scale up. That pressure on new-phone pricing shows no sign of easing either: sub-$200 phones, which make up roughly half of India's smartphone sales, saw prices jump more than 30% in the first quarter of 2026 alone.
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Globally, the refurbished electronics market has already grown from $60.3 billion in 2018 to $110.6 billion in 2024, and is projected to hit around $247 billion by 2029, with Sardana estimating India's premium refurbished segment could grow from roughly $2.2 billion today to nearly $7.8 billion by FY30, a compound annual growth rate of about 29%.
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