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Zwipit wants to buy SA’s old phones

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The Zwipit South African team that is bringing the service to SA. (Gareth van Zyl, Fin24)
The Zwipit South African team that is bringing the service to SA. (Gareth van Zyl, Fin24)
Gareth van Zyl

Johannesburg - South Africans looking to earn extra money by selling their old phone and tablet devices have a new avenue to do so thanks to a buy-back e-commerce venture launched today.

Spain’s Zwipit now has a South African business that buys used tablets, feature phones and smartphones for refurbishment and resale.

South Africans can visit the company’s e-commerce website to sell their gadgets, and in turn, Zwipit promises “competitive pricing” that is “guaranteed upfront”, free courier collection and cash in sellers’ bank accounts within ten working days.

At this stage, South Africans can only sell and not buy devices via Zwipit. The company in turn sells devices bought in South Africa to other countries.

But the Zwipit South African team told Fin24 that if local adoption of the service is strong, then the company plans on allowing South Africans to buy phones locally as well.

"Anything that has a value and demand in another market, we'll buy it," Nothando Moleketi, Zwipit South Africa’s marketing and operations executive, told Fin24.

Felix Martin-Aguilar, Zwipit South Africa’s managing director, told Fin24 that 56 million devices were recycled last year across the globe while projections are that 220 million old devices will be resold by 2018.

He added that Zwipit offers sellers prices based on the condition of the old devices. Phones with cracked screens, for example, could fetch up to 40% of their value, while newer devices can be sold for more, Martin-Aguilar said.

"This (the South African operation) is going to be the tenth country that we start operations. The first African country to launch," Martin-Aguilar told Fin24.

"Africa is actually a big continent in terms of a target to sell the refurbished phones, especially in South Africa,” he added.

Martin-Aguilar also told Fin24 that South Africa is planned to be the African headquarters for Zwipit as the company is considering operating in other countries such as Nigeria and Kenya next.

Earlier this month, global mobile phone body the GSMA forecast that Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to have over 500 million mobile subscribers by 2020.

* Follow @GarethvanZyl on Twitter. For more tech news, follow Fin24tech @Fin24_Tech.

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