More and more Internet companies have put increasing effort into innovating second-hand cell phone recycling in order to get a bite of this potentially huge market.

China's mobile phone shipments stood at 414 million units in 2018 while an estimated 461 million mobile phones reached the end of their lives, according to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Only a few percent of those ‘dead’ cell phones got recycled, which suggests great market potential in the area.

Meanwhile, with the rise of 5G mobile phones, it is believed that consumers will replace their current cell phones, further stimulating the cell-phone recycling market.

Traditionally, second-hand cell phones were mainly recycled by peddlers and scalpers on the street, which was both inconvenient and presented security risks for the data. In addition, unreasonable prices were usually charged for the cell phones.

The Internet is about to change that, said He Fan, founder and CEO of Huishoubao Tech, a leading electronics product recycling service provider in China, adding that it is important for market players to use the Internet to explore the market.

In 2014, Huishoubao Tech was established in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong province, allowing users to have their second-hand cell phones assessed through the company’s official website or app. After placing an order, they could mail the cell phones to the company and get paid once the platform tests the quality of the delivered product.

Quality testing and pricing are major difficulties for recycling providers. While Igooma, which also engages in recycling second-hand cell phones, have employed AI in quality testing, which is five to ten times more efficient than the industrial average in the process, Huishoubao has developed an intelligent pricing system that allows it to analyze the price trend of second-hand mobile phones based on big data, and then price the mobile phones according to their conditions.

After quality testing, disinfection and data elimination, cell phones of relatively good quality will be sold again, and those unsuitable for selling will be delivered to environmental companies to be disposed of.