2024-04-05 23:17:29

On July 12, 2022, a man was repairing his mobile phone in a mobile phone repair shop in Huaqiangbei Electronics Market, Shenzhen, Guangdong. (Jade Gao/AFP via Getty Images)

[The Epoch Times, April 6, 2024](Comprehensive report by Epoch Times reporter Li Jing) In order to stimulate the economy and promote residents’ consumption, the Chinese Communist Party authorities have recently launched the “old for new” policy in an attempt to stimulate the recovery of the durable consumer goods market such as automobiles, home appliances, and real estate. But market feedback is not optimistic.

The stock of used mobile phones exceeds 2 billion, and the recycling rate is only 5%

According to reports from China News Weekly and The Paper on April 5, data from the China Circular Economy Association showed that China produces an average of more than 400 million used mobile phones every year, and the stock of used mobile phones exceeds 2 billion.

The association’s research data also shows that following mobile phones are discarded, regarding 54.2% are left idle by consumers, and only regarding 5% can enter recycling channels such as professional used mobile phone recycling platforms and “old-for-new” activities.

In 2021, the Beijing Entrepreneur Environmental Protection Foundation released the “Public Survey Report on Mobile Phone Use and Recycling”, which showed that 61% of respondents were unwilling to sell their old mobile phones, mainly because they were worried that information security might not be guaranteed following the mobile phones were recycled.

Some people in the industry believe that the waste mobile phone recycling industry still faces obstacles such as insufficient comprehensive processing capacity, low consumer willingness to recycle used mobile phones, long recycling processes, and high recycling costs.

Wang Yang, a young man born in the 1990s in Changsha, said, “My wife and I are not digital product enthusiasts, but the total number of used mobile phones at home is more than 10. Sell it. Firstly, the price cannot be raised, and secondly, we are worried regarding personal Information is leaked. Even if it is formatted or restored to factory settings, there is no guarantee that it will not be restored by professionals.”

Many consumers have expressed concerns regarding data security following getting rid of their old mobile phones. In addition to the leakage of personal data and personal privacy, there are also financial losses and impacts on their own security caused by binding bank cards and various accounts to the old mobile phones.

In reality, there has been a phenomenon that data on second-hand mobile phones can still be recovered following restoring to factory settings, and some criminals have used this to make profits. According to media reports, the price of mobile phone data recovery services ranges from 800 to 2,000 yuan, and the price of offline mobile phone data recovery starts as low as 5 yuan. The recovered data includes chat records, photos, videos, and address books.

The authorities promote “replacement of old items with new ones” but the market is not optimistic

In March this year, the Chinese Communist Party authorities adopted the “Action Plan to Promote Large-Scale Equipment Updating and Trade-in of Consumer Goods for New”. Officials proposed to carry out trade-in of durable consumer goods such as automobiles, home appliances, real estate, and home decoration, saying that this would “help promote consumption and stimulate demand potential.”

According to a report by Workers’ Daily on April 5, in order to activate market demand, the number of cities that have recently joined the “trade-in” program in the property market continues to grow.

“The premise of ‘trade-in’ is to be able to sell the old house smoothly. Although the policy states that it will help us give priority to selling, second-hand houses are not easy to sell now, and the effect may be limited.” said Ms. Song, a resident of Hangzhou.

Ms. Song put her two-bedroom apartment on the market last year and wanted to sell it and replace it with a new one, but the old house has not been sold so far.

Some people in the industry said that the current bottleneck of “old-for-new” is the sale of old houses. If buyers want to close the deal quickly, they need to make certain concessions in terms of price. If the sales jam of old houses cannot be cleared up, the transaction cycle of new houses locked in by home buyers will also be lengthened. Once the old houses fail to be sold, the pressure on developers to sell new houses will also increase, and real estate companies will be enthusiastic regarding participating in the “trade-in” of old houses. may also be affected.

Editor in charge: Sun Yun#

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