Market

Eurostat’s 2024 device disposal reveals that 51.2% of European consumers retain their old mobile phones at home, up from 49.1% in 20221. Ireland leads device hoarding at 69.3% whilst only 18.1% of Europeans sold their old devices. If you don't like those numbers, Recommerce's 2026 Barometer, fielded by Kantar across thirteen markets in January, offers a livelier reading2. It puts the share of Europeans who sold their previous mobile in the last twelve months at 37%, more than double Eurostat's figure. Some of that gap is genuine; most of it is methodological. The barometer surveys ages 11 to 65 and asks a flow question about a single previous device rather than measuring the stock of handsets accumulating in European drawers. The country mix also diverges: the UK and Switzerland are in, Ireland, the Nordics and the Baltics are out. None of which makes the Kantar fieldwork unsound, but it does explain why a refurbisher's barometer reads more buoyantly than a statistical agency's release.

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation followed December's Keep it in use brief with a second, EU-specific white paper in March3, this time focused on the forthcoming Circular Economy Act. The diagnosis picks up where the earlier paper left off: fragmented national rules, EPR schemes tilted toward end-of-life recycling rather than reuse, double taxation of pre-owned goods, and a single market that still does not function for circular business models. The recommendations run three ways: First, harmonised EPR administration via a central EU-level digital one-stop shop, with mandatory eco-modulated fee criteria and an explicit exemption for second-hand goods already placed on the EU market from paying duplicate EPR fees. Second, coordinated reduced VAT rates on repair, reconditioning and resale of refurbished goods, together with simplified margin-scheme treatment for cross-border refurbishment and product-as-a-service models. Third, EU-level industrial alliances along priority value chains, with consumer electronics named explicitly alongside packaging and textiles. The Foundation asks the Commission how the directive could be linked to ESPR design requirements to reduce value destruction in end-of-life treatment. Regular readers will recognise that as the same gap I flagged in the December round-up, where I argued that ESPR governs design at manufacture, WEEE governs end-of-life, and the two are not connected in practice. The practical stakes are direct. Duplicate EPR fees have been a persistent friction for cross-border refurbishers; VAT margin-scheme treatment materially affects the unit economics of refurbishment platforms and leasing operators; and the WEEE-ESPR linkage is the first serious attempt to connect design incentives to end-of-life outcomes in consumer electronics. But, the Foundation is feeding into the Commission's proposal rather than drafting it, and the Omnibus-I simplification package sits awkwardly alongside making the overall direction of travel harder to read.

I saw a post on LinkedIn claiming that the EU had mandated user-replaceable smartphone batteries by 20274. It then seemed to proliferate all over the place and even ended up on various Facebook groups, those bastions of solid news reporting. I think this stems from the 18 February 2027 application date of Article 11 of the Batteries Regulation (2023/1542)5 but the reality lives in the parallel Ecodesign Regulation (2023/1670)6, which is considerably more nuanced. Annex II, point B 1.1(5)(c)(ii) of Regulation (EU) 2023/1670 permits manufacturers to restrict battery supply to professional repairers provided the device simultaneously meets IP67, a remaining capacity of at least 83% at 500 full charge cycles, and 80% at 1,000 full charge cycles. Apple has been engineering to precisely this lane since iPhone 15, publishing the 80% at 1,000 cycles specification and shipping IP68 across the Pro line; Samsung, Google and the rest of the Android pack are following the same path. The 2027 change is not going to be a return to poppable back covers but the continued formalisation of professional repair as the default service channel, with seven-year parts availability obligations, registered repairer regimes, and reasonable pricing clauses. I’m not surprised at the oversimplification, but it just highlights how, even with the best of intentions, misinformation about complex, overlapping legislation especially when amplified by AI, can set off a storm in the proverbial teacup.

Companies

Samsung Q1 2026 results proved a fascinating read for anyone following the chip crisis7. Standalone the mobile unit delivered Q1 2026 sales of KRW 37.5T (~$25.3bn) versus 36.2T (~$24.5bn) a year earlier (+4% YoY), with combined mobile (MX) & networks (NW) operating profit of KRW 2.8T (~$1.9bn) against 4.3T (~$2.9bn) in Q1 2025. That's roughly 7.3% operating margin versus around 11.6% twelve months ago. Samsung admits to it directly in the commentary: "Secured single-digit profitability via proactive cost optimization". Serious stuff for the launch quarter of your flagship series. Samsung publishes the operating profit at a combined (MX/NW) level and the loss-making NW will have offset MX to some extent. No need to guess the cause. Device Solutions (DS) posted KRW 81.7T (~$55.2bn) in revenue and KRW 53.7T (~$36.3bn) in operating profit, with Memory setting an all-time quarterly record on what Samsung attributes to "higher ASP" and "limited supply availability"; as MX buys memory internally, the same tightness driving DS to a roughly 66% operating margin is feeding through to the Galaxy bill of materials, masking what is in effect an internal transfer of value from MX to DS. The +4% revenue print also deserves calendar context. The S26 launched in mid-March against the S25's early-February launch, so Q1 26 captured roughly a fortnight of S26 sell-in versus close to two months of S25 a year earlier. Omdia reads the print as exceptionally strong on that basis, with shipments of 65.4 million units up 8% YoY8. The maths implies blended ASP softened by around 4% despite Samsung citing a mix skew toward Ultra; the explanation isn't obvious from the deck. Q2 guidance flags "Decline in profitability expected despite flagship-centric sales" and "diminishing launch effects", with a quietly damning H2 line about needing to "Address evolving customer needs through strengthening foldable product development" which I'll translate as: foldables aren't landing where Samsung had hoped. The wider implication is the interesting bit; if Samsung, with a memory division to lean on, cannot protect handset margin, the OEMs buying at arm's length presumably have it worse.

Apple's results landed the same evening, providing a fairly direct answer to the pricing-power question Samsung raised. Q2 FY26 iPhone revenue came in at $57.0bn versus $46.8bn a year earlier, up 21.7%; the H1 picture is $142.3bn versus $116.0bn (+22.7%), so two consecutive quarters of 20%-plus iPhone revenue growth9. Cook's "extraordinary demand for the iPhone 17 lineup" framing is doing real work in the numbers, not just PR. Apple stopped disclosing units in 2018, so the revenue line cannot be split between volume, mix and ASP from the financials alone, and the iPhone 17e launching during the quarter as a lower-priced entry point complicates the read further; if revenue grew 22% with a new lower-priced SKU added, underlying unit growth is likely material. With numbers like these, I’m not sure Apple need to be chasing a foldable unit, delayed or not10. The geographic distribution is unusual: every region up double-digits, with Greater China leading at +28.1% on a $20.5bn revenue line. The "Apple losing China" narrative that ran through most of 2024 and 2025 looks badly out of step with this print, although whether the lift is consumer electronics subsidies, Huawei capacity constraints, or iPhone 17 simply landing well remains an open question. The margin read is the more telling part for our purposes. Apple Products gross margin expanded YoY to 38.7%, while Samsung MX/NW operating margin compressed from around 11.6% to 7.3% over the same calendar quarter. Different line items either side of opex, but both moving meaningfully under the same memory tightness; only one is passing the cost through. The implication for European refurbishers is uncomfortable. If iPhone demand is genuinely running this hot, secondary supply tightens further as consumers hold devices longer or trade up rather than trade in.

Foxway is exactly the kind of business caught in that squeeze, and their Annual Financial and Sustainability Report for 202511 landed in April with a useful level of operational detail. Total inflows reached approximately 6.2 million units (5.7 million kilograms), of which 2,592,792 tech products were sold for reuse, 345,498 sent for recycling and a further 3.22 million components and accessories returned to circulation. Mobile phones dominate the reuse total at 1,078,748 units, ahead of laptops at 550,020 and other ICT equipment at 638,289. Reuse rates run at 90% for mobiles, tablets and computers combined, 88% across all tech products and 93% once components are included. The figures are not segmented by reporting business area, which limits cross-checking against revenue lines, but they sit awkwardly against the Mobile segment's wider trajectory; over a million units of mobile reuse passing through the business in a year that produced its lowest full-year EBITDA margin12 since Finsur coverage began. Ouch.

Following on from last month's note in the EU CE Recommerce analysis, the Back Market and Google ChromeOS Flex USB Kit went on sale on 30 March priced at $3 / €3 / £313. The pilot was 3,000 units capped at three per customer, and sold out in roughly 24 hours14. Whether the sell-out was deliberate or genuinely under-cooked supply, either explanation supports expansion. The additional commercial play is the line of HP and Lenovo laptops with ChromeOS Flex pre-installed that Back Market quietly began selling in September 2025, a month ahead of the Windows 10 end-of-support deadline15. The partnership was first aired publicly at "Slow Tech Uprising", a Back Market hosted side event timed to coincide with Mobile World Congress16; counter-programming as positioning, with Back Market staking a claim to host the device-longevity conversation while Fira Gran Via’s main halls sold the next handset cycle.

Google added the Pixel 8a to its US Certified Refurbished Pixel range on the Google Store, which already covered the 7a, 8, 8 Pro, 7 and 7 Pro17. "Our biggest Certified Refurbished expansion yet" is generous framing for adding one device to a six-device portfolio. The interesting bit is the channel choice; distribution runs through both the Google Store and Amazon Renewed, structurally distinct from Apple's direct-only model and Samsung's direct-plus-partner approach. Pricing claims up to 45% off original MSRP. No specific news on the European front, where Google Store refurbished availability remains uneven.

Recommerce capped a busy April with four announcements in 23 days. The opening move on 1 April was a refreshed e-commerce site built around four pillars aimed squarely at the sector's credibility problem: a 36-month warranty that exceeds both the EU consumer rights minimum and the warranty period on new devices, a Deal Certify traceability tool giving each product its own digital identity and diagnostic record, systematic battery replacement below 85% capacity, and the existing RecQ label from DEKRA. The 36 months is the commercial substance; the rest is dressing on a competitive shot at marketplace rivals offering less18. Twelve days later, a leadership refresh confirmed €210m revenue at +20% growth and dual Apple/Samsung Authorised Service Provider status, alongside five appointments to the supervisory board and a new “Tech Board”19. On 21 April, two ChatGPT-integrated apps launched, one for purchasing across Recommerce’s 7,000-product catalogue, the other issuing binding trade-in quotes from its real-time pricing matrix20. Claimed as a sector first, although the agentic commerce thesis remains unproven; OpenAI itself just deprioritised Instant Checkout and pivoted ChatGPT shopping towards product discovery21. Further news landed on 23 April, with Recommerce confirmed as the first global partner in Samsung’s Authorized Refurbisher Partner programme, gaining genuine parts, official diagnostic tools and a 100-plus checkpoint protocol focused on Galaxy S and Z premium ranges22.

Automation continues to be an operational focus with Apkudo and Qates announcing the Buff-Polish system on 14 April23, an automated screen restoration platform targeting high-volume processors and carriers. The pitch is industrial-grade scratched-screen polishing without replacement, with each Buff-Polish action logged automatically into Apkudo's Device Passport, which like Recommerce's Deal Certify, bets on traceable improvement history becoming a commercial unlock rather than back-office compliance. Throughput claims of 12 devices per hour need a refurbisher running the kit at scale to verify, but the directional point matters. Margin levers on cosmetics restoration are exactly what the squeezed middle of the sector needs. Getting it done at a cost befitting current European volumes might be art more than science.

Investments

Again, investment activity in the sector was notably quiet in April, with only two material disclosed deals, both in Asia and both at pre-Series A stage. Indonesian recommerce platform Kitar raised over $10 million, with sources crediting either Source Code Capital or Yuanma Lvdong as lead alongside Hike Capital and Mindworks Capital24. Founded by former Shopee executive Frank Zhou, Kitar is targeting Southeast Asia's fragmented secondhand smartphone market starting with Indonesia, where it operates 12 stores and partners with Shopee for trade-ins and with local distributors for Apple supply. India's Grest secured an undisclosed FDI from Japanese VC ICMG as part of an ongoing Pre-Series A, the company's first foreign investment25. Grest is materially smaller than Cashify, with FY25 revenue of ₹25.8 Cr (~$3 million) and an FY26 target of ₹50 Cr (~$6 million), but the cross-border early-stage capital is the editorially interesting bit; ICMG's framing references Japan's own consumer shift toward refurbished as the conviction driver. Beyond these, multiple cross-checks against primary sources, wire services and reputable secondary outlets surfaced no qualifying deals in European refurbishment, device protection, repair networks, or operator-led trade-in. Investors appear to be waiting out the memory cycle.

Good job on making it this far, next month I’m aiming to get the Telco Q1 equipment revenue update out, depending on release timings and there’s a few more company analyses lined up as well. Finally, a warm welcome and big thank you to my new subscribers, especially those of you that chose to pay. Publishing research takes time and effort. Thank you. Sincerely.

Peace,

sb.

Key Findings: At the £1,099 like-for-like price point (iPhone 17 Pro vs Galaxy S26+ 256GB), AppleCare+ is priced 39% above Samsung Care+ on the 24-month single premium and 60% above on monthly theft and loss cover | Apple compresses three iPhones spanning £200 of retail (the £999 Air, the £1,099 Pro and the £1,199 Pro Max) into a single £179 AC+ band, concentrating premium pricing at the segment where Apple Retail UK FY2025 attach rates run 19-21% | Apple's monthly-to-fixed-term uplift sits flat at 21% across the iPhone range, while Samsung's varies from 6% to 27% across SKUs, consistent with bolttech and AmTrust still calibrating after the 19 January 2026 relaunch | Samsung's move to a 48-hour replacement guarantee redirects claimed devices into its refurbishment and parts network rather than back to customers, a lifecycle change beyond the customer-experience upgrade | FCA 2024 Value Measures place AIG, AC+'s underwriter, in the higher bands for average claim payout among gadget insurers, with Samsung's pre-relaunch Assurant programme in lower bands on frequency, acceptance and payout. Full analysis available as a downloadable report at reports.finsur.co.uk.

Following last week's piece on Apple Retail UK's blistering FY2025 sales1 and the implied AppleCare Plus (AC+) performance, it felt worth setting the AC+ benchmark against its main competitor. Samsung Care+ (SC+) went through a complete relaunch on 19 January 2026 with new underwriter, new administrator, and a substantially upgraded product, so the timing is good for a side-by-side. Whether any of this sways consumer buying behaviour is a different question, but the comparison surfaces some differences in how the two duopolists structure their device protection.

Introduction

In scoping this article, I’d looked at multiple markets and eventually settled on the UK only because the products are practically identical across all major western markets and when accounting for f/x, the pricing is pretty standard as well. The article covers only the policies as purchased directly from the online manufacturer store for the iPhone 17 generation and the current Galaxy S & Z lineups.

I’ve listed both the 24-month single premium and monthly premium prices. AppleCare Plus (AC+) monthly cover is open-ended and cancellable at any time. SamsungCare Plus (SC+) monthly cover rolls for a maximum of 60 months.

AC+ prices come from the UK pricing appendix available here and the SC+ prices come from their configurator, here. All prices were recorded on 27/04/2026.

Apple’s excess charges are applied identically across every iPhone: £25 for screen and back glass damage, £79 for other accidental damage, and £109 for theft and loss. Samsung uses two tiers, banding their excess as well as the premium. The S26 and S26+ carry £25 for any damage claim and £50 for theft and loss. The S26 Ultra, Z Flip7, and Z Fold7 step up to £50 for damage and £120 for theft and loss.

On 19 January 2026, Samsung relaunched Care+ across 17 European markets. The underwriter changed from Assurant to AmTrust Specialty, the administrator changed to bolttech, and the product itself was substantially upgraded: unlimited repairs replaced the previous two-per-year cap, monthly cover now rolls for up to 60 months instead of 36, support went 24/7, the previous 60-day worldwide trip limit was removed, and a 48-hour replacement guarantee replaced the old repair-first model that had produced multi-week customer waits. Existing customers on policies bought before 19 January remain on the old Assurant terms; new customers get the relaunched product, which is what this article analyses.

General Cluster

With the iPhone 17 Pro and Galaxy S26+ both at £1,099 for the 256GB version, it’s the most obvious price comparison in the middle of the premium device price point. For the iPhone AC+ 24m, single premium comes in at £179 and AC+TL at £239. For the Galaxy, SC+ 24m single premium is £129 and SC+TL is £169. AC+ is 39% more expensive than SC+ on the standard accidental damage policy and 41% higher on the theft and loss policy.

The picture changes with the monthly policies. Apple's AC+ at £8.99 per month is 38% above Samsung's SC+ at £6.49, similar to the fixed-term gap but, add in the theft and loss and the difference jumps to 60%, with AC+TL at £11.99 versus SC+TL at £7.49. And, whilst AC+TL monthly sits at 20% above the pro-rata equivalent of its own 24-month single premium (£239 / 24 = £9.96), SC+TL monthly sits only 6% above its pro-rata £7.04. Apple appear to be pricing in the higher risk that monthly theft and loss cover represents and perhaps Samsung are not. A customer paying month-to-month retains the right to cancel at any time, which makes the monthly T&L line more exposed to adverse selection than the locked-in fixed-term equivalent. AmTrust, having only taken over the SC+ account in January, may not yet have the same claim experience to equivalently load the monthly premiums. Or it might just be a different commercial decision. One to watch.

The iPhone Air and the Galaxy Z Flip7 provide two more devices creating a general cluster around the £1,099 price point. The Z Flip7 and the iPhone Air both have different hardware platforms warranting separate risk pricing. Samsung’s Z Flip7 retail price point at £1,049 is £50 below the S26+ but single premium SC+ at £189 and SC+TL at £269 are £60 (+47%) and £100 (+59%) more expensive. The monthly picture is similar: £9.49 against £6.49 for standard cover and £12.49 against £7.49 for theft and loss, gaps of 46% and 67% respectively, which implies the flipping hardware is still significantly more costly to repair, despite engineering improvements in the more recent versions.

Apple's iPhone Air at £999 retail sits £100 below the iPhone 17 Pro at £1,099, but AC+ at £179 single premium and AC+TL at £239 are identical on both phones. The monthly picture is the same: £8.99 for standard cover and £11.99 theft and loss. The Air also carries identical AC+ pricing to the iPhone 17 Pro Max at £1,199, despite a £200 retail gap. That’s three phones spanning £200 in one insurance band, and the £999 Air is the cheapest phone inside it. Stepping down to the iPhone 17 at £799, AC+ falls to £129 standard and £189 theft and loss, gaps of 39% and 26% respectively. The 39% step on standard cover lines up with the 25% retail price difference almost exactly on a proportional basis, but the 26% theft and loss step is shallower. Whether this means AIG sees the Air's theft and loss exposure as lower than its band placement implies, or whether it is simply how the band fell out commercially, the data cannot prove. However, what this does make clear is that Apple's premium insurance band is not price-driven.

Continue reading for:

• The logic behind Apple’s upper band and why it sits where it does in the iPhone line-up

• How the monthly-to-fixed-term uplift discipline differs between the two programmes and what it suggests about the post-relaunch transition

• The lifecycle implication of Samsung’s January 2026 service shift, and what Apple’s first foldable pricing decision will signal

Alternatively, this article is available as a downloadable report from reports.finsur.co.uk

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Key Findings: Apple Retail UK reported £2.79bn revenue for FY2025 (+8.1% YoY), with operating margin expanding to 4.04% (FY2024: 3.73%) despite gross margin compression. AppleCare+ sales reached £60-65m (+42-54% YoY) with unit-based attachment rates rising to 19-21% against 1.8m eligible devices sold. Revenue per store increased 11.2% on like-for-like basis whilst telco equipment sales declined across European markets, reinforcing structural channel displacement toward manufacturer direct sales. Full analysis available as a downloadable report at reports.finsur.co.uk

Last year's Apple Retail UK analysis confirmed what the consumer surveys had been suggesting: the telcos were losing their grip on device sales. Since then, the evidence has only strengthened with the Telco Equipment Revenues1 report documenting notable declines across European operators whilst consumer direct purchase rates continued climbing. So, with Apple Retail UK Limited (04996702) filing another year of results last week, and the channel displacement story now looking structural rather than cyclical, it seemed worth revisiting the UK retail entity for FY2025 up to 27/09/2025. Let’s dive in…

Recap

Apple Retail UK (ARUK) delivered exceptional FY2024 performance with revenues surging 54% to £2.58bn, demonstrating Apple’s ability to capture market share despite challenging economic conditions. Store productivity reached £64.4m per location whilst operating profit jumped 88% to £96m, suggesting the direct retail model was really beginning to hit its stride. AppleCare+ sales recovered sharply to £42.2m after a modest prior-year decline, with attachment rates stabilising around 12% on a unit basis.

The performance validated emerging consumer behaviour shifts favouring manufacturer direct sales over traditional telco channels. Consumer surveys throughout 2025 consistently showed Apple’s direct purchase rate approaching 25%, whilst telco equipment revenues began showing weakness across European markets setting the conditions for further channel displacement. FY2025 would test whether this momentum could be sustained and whether the strategic shift from carriers to direct retail had become permanent rather than cyclical.

Performance

FY2025 Key Performance Metrics:

- Total Revenue: £2.79bn (FY2024: £2.58bn, +8.1%)

- Gross Profit: £466.5m at 16.7% margin (FY2024: £436.2m at 16.9%)

- Operating Profit: £112.6m at 4.04% margin (FY2024: £96.1m at 3.73%)

- Profit Before Tax: £131.5m (FY2024: £115.1m, +14.3%)

- Revenue per Store: £71.4m like-for-like (FY2024: £64.4m, +11.2%)

- Revenue per Employee: £574k (FY2024: £534k, +7.5%)

- Store Count: 39 (FY2024: 40, Bristol closure)

- Employee Count: 4,850 (FY2024: 4,822, +0.6%)

Despite a significant deceleration from last year’s 54% growth surge, ARUK maintained healthy top line momentum through FY2025. Against a backdrop of suppressed consumer economics, lengthening ownership cycles and the higher comparative baseline, turnover increased 8.1% to £2.79bn (FY2024: £2.58bn). Their resilience over channel competition, particularly the telco’s who posted notable equipment sales decline through FY20252, indicates Apple’s continued market share gains and direct brand strength in the premium segment.

At finsur’s last count, Apple commanded 43.1% of the UK market3 with 24.8% of Apple customers purchasing directly from the manufacturer which would imply ARUK capturing approximately 1.8m device sales annually. That would place them among the largest single smartphone retailers in the UK, competing directly against the telco stores (39.2% market share) and the retail/marketplace channels (35%). Apple’s direct channel share significantly outperforms Samsung’s 17.2% direct sales rate which alongside brand loyalty and premium positioning, clearly justifies the investment in direct retail and service quality infrastructure.

Applying Apple Inc.’s global product revenue mix (excluding Services) to the ARUK turnover implies iPhone sales of £1.86bn, Mac sales of £388m, iPad sales of £285m and Wearables/Home/Accessories sales of £262m4. The estimated iPhone unit sales of 1.8m devices gives us an implied average (net) selling pricing of £1033 exemplifying Apple’s premium positioning but also possibly indicating a bias in the retail footprint towards Pro models.

With one seemingly enforced store closure due to the Cabot Circus redevelopment in Bristol, the ARUK store footprint dropped from 40 to 39. ARUK provides no revenue analysis, so ignoring online sales for the sake of comparisons and accounting for the store closure, per store revenue increased 11.2% to £71.5m on a like-for-like basis or to £69.9m in real terms. And, whilst further comparisons against other retailers might not quite be Apple’s to Apple’s, these levels significantly exceed say Curry’s Retail Limited at £2.4m per store, or VMO2 at £3.9m per store (equipment revenue only). This performance would suggest that the store network is apt to support further growth without proportional estate expansion should ARUK capture further channel migration.

The last revenue metric further demonstrates operation leverage within the store network. Average monthly employee count increased marginally (0.6%) to 4,850 (FY2024: 4,822) against the 8.1% revenue expansion, generating revenue per employee of £575,000 compared to £534,000 in the prior year. The minimal headcount growth suggests the retail model scales effectively, supporting margin expansion potential whilst continuing to maintain Apple's in-store experience that differentiates the brand from volume retailers.

Finsur is a reader supported publication. This level of research takes considerable time. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to continue reading for:

• Profitability deep-dive: How Apple absorbed wholesale pricing pressure whilst achieving 17% operating profit growth and a 31 basis point margin expansion

• AppleCare+ evolution: New methodology reveals £60-65m sales estimates with attachment rates reaching 20% as monthly policies reshape the business model

• Strategic shifts: Why Apple terminated the iPhone Upgrade Programme in favour of flexible finance accounts and what this signals about customer behaviour

Alternatively, this article is available as a single payment PDF report here.

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Key Findings: Eleven European CE recommerce operators compared on warranty, insurance, battery guarantees, trade-in and beyond-the-transaction propositions, benchmarked against Apple Certified Refurbished and Samsung Certified Renewed. Service provision varies widely; insurance is the most underdeveloped dimension with four operators offering nothing and only five carrying regulated cover. OEMs set the benchmark on battery, protection and integrated trade-in that the sector is beginning to match.

There’s no doubt that despite everyone’s best sustainability efforts, the majority of buyers opt for a pre-loved device because of the price differential. We might wish otherwise but, given the economic backdrop over the last few years, it’s an unsurprising consequence of squeezed disposable incomes and incremental technology developments that might offer a few more pixels.

Still, with 63% of refurbished buyers preferring pristine or certified condition devices (whatever that currently means)1 and being increasingly contested by Apple Certified Refurbished and Samsung Certified Re-newed, beyond price, service propositions become the terrain on which competition will develop. In this article, following on from last week’s European CE Recommerce market analysis, I map out the service propositions for the same eleven operators benchmarked against the OEM duopolists.

Snapshot

This isn’t a price comparison, there’s plenty of sites doing that in real time, but I selected the same base device in order to capture any price related cross sells, like insurance. I selected an iPhone 15 128GB in black and in excellent condition, or the equivalent. Prices ranged from £358.75 to €499 but different countries, currencies and quite probably different VAT treatments make any headline comparison misleading and it’s not the point of the article anyway.

Highly likely, you’ll need to click the image below to expand it and make it readable, if not, I’ll gladly swap eyes…

The first point to highlight is that Back Market remain the only operator in the study group to charge a QA fee: £390 headline and £399.48 at the checkout. I know that one or two other operators dotted around the continent do it, but none are at the scale to be included here, yet. For more information on the mechanics of the variable fee that doesn’t really feel like it’s related to quality, check out my pre-Christmas purchase experience here.

Anecdotally, we know that consumer concerns about battery health play a large role in overall quality considerations so it’s good to see operators beginning to compete beyond the 80% minimum. Still at the floor, Amazon, Back Market, asgoodasnew (AGAN), MusicMagpie and Rebuy have an 80% minimum, although Rebuy actually states explicitly an 80-99% range. Three operators: Refurbed, Flip.ro and Recommerce sit at >85% and Swappie nudges the commitment further with a >86% floor. At the top, OEMs set the benchmark with Apple’s brand new battery in a certified device and Samsung’s odd “comparable to new” approach. Admittedly, my OEM grade comparison is a little off here: Back Market’s Premium grade advertises a 90% battery guarantee, although that commitment only lasts for the first 30 days only. From month two onwards the threshold drops down to the more usual 80% limit, making it a 30-day proposition. An Apple out-of-warranty battery replacement costs £99. For a buyer weighing Back Market Premium against Apple Certified, that £99 erodes most or all of the headline price saving, given Apple includes a new battery as standard.

A new battery was available, as a premium option, from six operators during the investigation. eBay (seller-dependent), Refurbed, Certideal, Flip.ro, Recommerce and Swappie all provided the option for a new battery. Back Market listed the option, but it was sold out for the reference device. Four operators did not have the option available: Amazon, AGAN, MusicMagpie and Rebuy.

Warranty

The approach to warranty provision splits cleanly along operator business model lines. The four marketplace operators sit at the 12-month baseline and rely, as you’d expect, on seller warranties with a platform backstop mechanism. Amazon’s Renewed Guarantee offers a replacement or refund if the product is faulty. Back Market’s Promise acts as an enforcement layer if the seller fails to perform. Refurbed register the claim, coordinate with the seller, and the seller provides a prepaid return label with repair, replacement or refund as the remedy. eBay’s approach felt like a lighter touch with the warranty terms only being available via seller communication post-purchase.

At the other end of the possible options, three of the integrated operators (Rebuy, Recommerce, Swappie) offer a full 36 month warranty, clearly confident in their own repair and refurbishment practices and addressing consumer quality concerns head on. AGAN offers 30 months, Certideal and Flip.ro 24 months and bringing up the rear, MusicMagpie commits only to a 12 month warranty on top of the UK consumer’s statutory rights. Each of the integrated operators warrant directly, with the liability sitting on their own balance sheets but it’s unlikely the provision will ever get large enough to be called out in an accounting note.

Swappie is the most transparent operator in the dataset on warranty structure. Their offer is a clear combination of a 12 month voluntary warranty from date of purchase plus the consumer’s separate legal guarantee, with the total duration varying by market. Not every Swappie customer receives 36 months; in markets where the statutory guarantee is shorter, so is the total. Rebuy is equally transparent, explicitly stating that their 36 month guarantee sits on top of the consumer’s statutory rights and does not restrict them. The remaining integrated operators state a headline warranty period without clarifying whether it incorporates or sits above the statutory floor, which makes direct comparison across jurisdictions difficult. Given the statutory warranty position for used goods varies across EU member states, with Germany permitting reduction to 12 months whilst other jurisdictions may apply the full 24 month consumer guarantee, headline months alone are not the measure of commercial commitment they first appear.

Rebuy’s pricing is interesting. At a €1.99 fixed rate for 36 months, it’s the only paid for option in the study, although cheap at less than 6 cents per month. That probably helps it function as a near-zero friction checkout add-on that’s designed to attach at as near to 100% as possible. It would be great to experiment with some price elasticity over the course of a year. Only an integrated operator that controls the refurbishment quality can price a warranty like that because the expected claim cost is a function of their own operational process.

AGAN’s 30 month warranty requires registration within 30 days of purchase, exclusively via their website. Miss the window and your coverage flies out of it. Even if a third party is involved, making a warranty conditional is archaic. All the necessary buyer data is stored as part of the purchase transaction. For context, Apple warrants for 1 year and Samsung for 2 years, both manufacturer-direct with no intermediation. Apple has previous on the statutory question, having been challenged by EU regulators for promoting its 1 year warranty without adequately disclosing buyers’ statutory rights2.

Protection

Beyond the warranty provision, a number of the operators have stepped into the regulated world of device insurance. Historically, distributors have always held the commercial advantage when negotiating with insurance companies who lap up the volume promises in order to offer the keenest commissions and profit shares in return. Two or three years later, after the volume didn’t arrive and the losses mounted, the distributor goes out to RFP again and the cycle repeats, usually with a new insurer.

Amazon, eBay, Swappie and Recommerce appear to avoid the circus by offering nothing at all on refurbished items. AGAN offer a screen protection or a wider device protection product (electrical appliance) in partnership with Tryg Forsikring. Flip.ro announced a partnership with Assurant including accidental damage and accidental damage with theft policies. However, I was unable to find this in the checkout flow during investigation. MusicMagpie use Astrenska Insurance (part of the Collinson Group) and extend the offer to malicious damage, theft and accidental loss. Rebuy partner with Axeria IARD with a narrow coverage for breakage and Refurbed use Helvetia Versicherungs-AG with a standard accidental damage cover.

Certideal’s Screen Breakage warranty sits in a different position. No underwriter was disclosed, or terms made available at the point of sale, or regulatory documentation easily identifiable at the point of sale. Whether this is due to the status of the product as a warranty, and believed to be outside of compliance scope was unclear.

Back in September 2024, I’d reported that Back Market distributed an insurance product via some combination of Wakam, Cardif and Bolttech which had subsequently moved on to the Watford Insurance Company3 . Sound familiar? Well things have moved on again. On the face of it, their “Back Up” product to the casual observer is described in terms similar to the usual protection policy. To anyone with an unhealthy interest in words, however, the difference between “unlimited repairs” and “unlimited repair requests” becomes clear when the product wordings state “This Service is not an insurance product and does not operate as one. It is a discretionary protection service, provided and administered at Our sole discretion.”

Anyone with history in the protection space will observe that if it looks like insurance and smells like insurance, any European regulator might pointedly suggest that, it’s insurance. Ask tenured D&G employees who spent the best part of 5 years capitalising their way out of discretionary service products towards insurance4. Still, I’m likely over-analysing, things may have moved-on and the book is unlikely to hit regulators’ risk radar in the same way D&G did. However, if you’re thinking about adding a protection product, there are plenty of experienced underwriters and administrators, big and small, who create insurance programmes sans-discretion.

Trade-In

A few years back, most trade-in processes operated via a separate website. The buying and selling transactions were entirely distinct. By this time last year, things had evolved with inline hand offs to co-branded or partner sites that would deal with the device buy back transaction. That approach is now looking dated as well. Clearly there’s need for a separate process to simply sell a device, but for consumers looking to upgrade, having the trade-in option integrated into the check-out flow has quickly become the default.

Apple and Samsung moved to this approach in the back-half of last year and four of the operators followed suit. Back Market, Rebuy, Swappie and Certideal all operate neat consumer journeys that either discount the trade-in value from the basket total, or refund the trade-in value immediately post sales transaction.

Five operators offer a standalone trade-in process only, separate from the purchase flow: eBay via the increasingly present Fonehouse Services group in the UK, Refurbed, AGAN via their WIRKAUFENS branded platform, Flip.ro and Recommerce. MusicMagpie present buying and selling as equal and separate propositions, directing consumers to the appropriate site accordingly. For a business whose core model depends on acquiring devices, the absence of an integrated trade-in flow is a missed opportunity and, post AO integration, one that’s surely high on the IT priority queue.

Beyond the Transaction

There are a few items of differentiating interest beyond the buying and selling processes. Swappie Care at €5.99 per month looks like the only upgrade subscription model in the dataset. It provides the consumer with a 90% discount code for a maximum of two upgrades in a 12 month period, transferring to the new device with a maximum of 5 years, I assume as a residual value protection mechanism.

MusicMagpie have been running a rental model alongside their sales for a number of years now and despite a capital intensity blip a few years ago, the offer looks firmly settled with the new bank of mum and dad’s backing.

In another attempt to address the quality question, Recommerce have opted for a certification. The RecQ label is a European quality mark for refurbished products (phones, PCs, tyres, etc.) that involves an audit of the whole chain from sourcing through testing, data wipe, repair and resale against a detailed set of criteria beyond basic regulatory compliance. It was designed and is governed by RCube, the French reuse federation, which manages the standard and label committee, while DEKRA acts as the independent certification body performing on‑site audits and grants or renews the label for three‑year periods with annual surveillance. Recommerce has obtained this “RecQ – Reconditionnement de Qualité” label, so its refurbishment processes are assessed under this RCube-owned scheme and then verified by DEKRA.

What’s Next?

Insurance is perhaps the most underdeveloped service offer across the group and this, at least in the UK, will have contributed to a significant YoY decline in attachment rates on refurbished devices in 20255. Amazon’s continued and increasing presence in device sales, new and refurbished6, without an insurance offer is the largest gap, but other operators should be working with insurance programme managers to offer at least an accidental damage cover at the checkout. I’m not in favour of advertising multi-use benefits (e.g. unlimited repairs) if they are not used, I’d prefer to see single claims and lower prices, matching the discounted price that refurbished buyers are in the market for.

Whilst it’s great to see the directional shift away from the 80% battery floor guarantee, more work needs to be done to increase it. If the manufacturers continue to suggest <80% is suboptimal, products delivered close to this are going to continue chipping away at consumer confidence. Now, my own refurbished iPhone happily operates all day below the 80% mark, but then the perception needs to be addressed as well as the technical boundary.

Flexible payment options are ubiquitous across the operators, but the further shift towards a rental option is not. Clearly the intense pressure on working capital over the rental and renewal cycle is preventative in a sector already struggling with margins. However, third-party providers are worth exploring to deliver an alternative ownership option for the consumer segment that looks beyond price. It’s hard to get a handle on popularity of the OEM subscription products, and at the time of writing they were not available on refurbished devices. Clearly, this is where the sector has an advantage and with product support extending, the all important second rental period for a refurbished device is well within operational reach.

Quality certifications may help with credibility, but from a consumer perspective risk becoming just as meaningless as grade labels are currently without significant public explanation. Recommerce’s efforts are to be applauded, but the RecQ / DEKRA certification route was something that required further research which is unlikely to impact the buying decision for price conscious customers when free 30-day return periods backstop the risk anyway. More thought required.

As the points of differentiation standardise, it would be great to see forward trade-in assist devices into their third lifecycle or parametric type insurance offers supporting a battery replacement in the event of degradation below the 80% floor. Perhaps policies that automatically add loss and theft during international travel could bridge the binary approach that’s defined the market to date. Maybe a trade-in credit balance on the consumers account could help pull those dormant drawer phones back into the ecosystem, even if a few € or £ for the older devices could help people save towards their next refurbished device?

This article maps the current service propositions across the main European CE recommerce operators and suggests a few near term options for further investigation. The question it raises is which of these eleven has the financial foundations to sustain and develop those offers over time. For that you’ll need to check out the European CE Recommerce sector report if you’ve not already…

Peace,

sb.

Methodology

Service proposition data was collected via direct purchase journey walkthrough for each operator, using an iPhone 15 128GB as the reference device (except Samsung), between 13 and 14 April 2026. Price data was recorded for context only; different countries, currencies and VAT treatments make direct price comparison misleading and it is not the purpose of the article. Insurance regulatory status was assessed from product documentation available at the point of sale; where no IPID or underwriter disclosure was present, the product is described accordingly, and regulatory classification is as presented by the operator without independent legal assessment. Warranty durations are recorded as stated by the operator; statutory warranty floors vary by EU member state and are not factored into headline figures unless the operator disclosed them explicitly. OEM data was collected from Apple and Samsung UK storefronts on the same dates. All data reflects the position at the time of collection and operator propositions are subject to change without notice.

This report covers eleven operators with estimated aggregate specialist revenue of approximately €1.14bn | no integrated operator with filed FY2024 accounts delivered a profitable year | net losses range from €4.1m at Flip.ro to €24.0m at Swappie, and Rebuy, the only operator to have posted a positive operating result in FY2023, reversed to a net loss of €4.75m. Flip.ro is the dataset's standout: FY2024 revenue of €78.9m grew 53.9% year on year with the net loss ratio compressing from 11.4% in FY2022 to 5.2% in FY2024, the most compelling financial trajectory in the report. Post-period, Refurbed announced EBITDA profitability and raised €50m | confirming the marketplace model is sound once the cost base is aligned. Back Market, Recommerce and Certideal file no statutory accounts; their aggregate estimated revenue exceeds €400m and the French transparency pattern shows no sign of changing. Full analysis available as a downloadable report at reports.finsur.co.uk.

In February last year, I published the European Marketplace Research Update covering the major secondary marketplace and integrated-model operators across Europe. My general opinion at the time was that operators needed to keep paddling or buy a bigger board in order to continue surfing the secondary wave. Now just over a year on, and given the continuing and increasing focus on the sector, it’s time for a refresh. This version anchors on the FY2024 filed accounts and combines recently published developments to offer a clear view of performance and trajectory.

If you’re looking at the European CE recommerce sector from an investment or strategic standpoint, this is the most complete evidence base currently available in one place. In addition to asgoodasnew, MusicMagpie (now part of AO World), Rebuy, Refurbed and Swappie, I’m pleased to be able to add Flip to the roster who provide significant coverage of Central & Eastern European markets. Whilst the transparency divide between France and everywhere else remains as wide as ever, the report makes best use of the financial data that has been made available to provide the widest possible coverage.

Orientation

Operators

This report features eleven operators, across three distinct categories: six with filed FY2024 accounts: asgoodasnew, Flip.ro, MusicMagpie, Rebuy and Refurbed and Swappie; three where disclosure is absent or limited to self-reported figures: Back Market, Certideal and Recommerce; and two platform companies that set gravitational context without being directly comparable: Amazon (Renewed) and eBay.

Of course, the European consumer electronics recommerce sector is considerably wider than the operators covered in this edition. UK-focused operators such as Reboxed and iOutlet, along with a range of other national companies are outside the scope for now on the basis of their size or regional significance.

Business Models

The primary business model distinction in this sector is “marketplace” operators versus “integrated” operators. Marketplace operators like Back Market and Refurbed earn commissions on the transactions between sellers and buyers. Their revenue is typically a take rate of approximately 10-11% applied to a Gross Merchandise Value (GMV). Integrated operators like Rebuy and Flip.ro buy devices wholesale or directly from consumers, refurbish them and sell them directly.

The secondary distinction is between specialist operators and platform generalists. eBay and Amazon list refurbished consumer electronics alongside every other product category, although they may run dedicated quality programmes, like Amazon Renewed, designed to improve the customer experience. Some specialists, like MusicMagpie also receive income from product categories like media.

The Transparency Divide

The final orientation point of note is the availability and granularity of filed accounts. Amazon and eBay accounts don’t provide the level of segmental reporting in their accounts to determine secondary market sales for consumer electronics which is perhaps understandable given their size. Equally understandable, but less acceptable is the habitual certificate of non-filing lodged by all of the French companies operating in this space: Back Market, Recommerce and Certideal all adopt the same approach of not filing annual accounts which, for a country operating at the forefront of secondary trends, is hardly setting the right example.

Marketplace Operators

Back Market

Back Market reported that 2025 global GMV hit €3.5bn, representing 32% YoY growth and announced global EBITDA profitability, with approximately 35% EBITDA margins reported in the home French market12. Of course, this tells nothing of net profitability, or the group position, and given that the US market became the second-largest market by GMV, and Austria, Italy and Portugal all reported triple-digit GMV growth in Q2 2025, they must still be investing heavily. The marketplace now operates across 18 different markets with approximately 17 million customers worldwide3.

Back Market’s growth has recently extended beyond market development. They launched a repair platform in France, Germany and Spain available to both customers and non-customers on a one-off or subscription basis4. More recently Back Market and Google have launched a programme where Back Market sells low‑cost ChromeOS Flex USB sticks you can plug into an old laptop to replace the existing OS with ChromeOS Flex, effectively “restarting” the device’s useful life rather than junking it5.

Additionally, Back Market’s B2B operation is growing with nearly 6,000 company customers in France and 250 in the US as at Q2 2025, reportedly doubling in the year. They have launched partnerships with Bouygues Telecom in France and Visible by Verizon in the US to add distribution reach beyond the marketplace.

Since the $510m Series E raise in January 2022, valuing the business at an eye watering $5.7bn, no further funding has been announced6. However, the reported EBITDA profitability would reduce any near-term pressure for external capital, though no balance sheet or cash position has been disclosed which could verify this. Unusual for a 35% EBITDA, €3.5bn GMV organisation, but not unfortunately unique.

Refurbed

Refurbed is the only pure marketplace operator in this report that files audited accounts posting FY2024 revenue of €72.3m (FY23: €61.0m, +19%), solid growth which, at an estimated 10.5% average commission rate, would imply a GMV of €688m. However, top-line momentum was not the issue. FY2024 operating loss widened slightly to €19.4m (FY23: €18.6m) and net loss also widened to €19.8m (FY23: €19.3m).

Marketing and operational expenses rose to €49.3m (FY23: €35.9m), generating an estimated incremental marketing ROI of 0.87x: Refurbed spent approximately €13.4m to acquire an additional €11.7m of revenue and widen the loss by €0.8m. This was the central problem that stood out in the filed accounts.

Total people costs of €28.2m included contracted personnel representing 47.5% of the total, with cash of €6.65m and an estimated €12-13m of Series C funding remaining undeployed at year end. Intervention was necessary and management had structured the cost base with flexibility and retained sufficient runway to act.

Post period, the picture changed materially with a c.20% workforce reduction early in 2025 followed by a profitability announcement in June7, and a €50m capital raise in October8 with funds targeted for further geographic expansion, including the now live UK site. By March 2026, multiple sources reported that Refurbed had crossed €3bn in cumulative GMV, less than a year after passing €2bn, implying annualised growth in excess of 40%. For a business that filed a €19.8m net loss in FY2024, the FY2025 trajectory is some story.

With Back Market’s continued financial opacity, Refurbed offers the only available insight into the GMV threshold required for marketplace profitability and €688m in FY2024 wasn’t it. The speed of the post-period reversal, from widening losses to double-digit EBITDA profitability within two reporting periods, suggests that the cost base was the problem rather than the model. The workforce reduction provided a catalyst, the €50m raise with new institutional investors alongside the existing shareholders confirmed conviction in the underlying economics rather than rescue financing.

The strategic decision to enter the UK market is an interesting one. The UK is one of Europe’s deepest and most competitive recommerce markets, and Refurbed’s entry, backed by fresh capital and an already operational site covering 24 markets across 486 million consumers, with premium brands representing 90% of platform GMV9, raises the competitive stakes further for every operator with UK exposure.

The full analysis of Refurbed’s marketplace economics, capital structure, and the margin between filed losses and stated profitability is covered in the Finsur Refurbed FY2024 report.

Continue reading for:

• Filed accounts analysis across six integrated operators including asgoodasnew, Flip.ro, MusicMagpie, Rebuy and Swappie, with gross margin, net result and employee efficiency data where disclosed

• The Comparative View: a fully populated cross-operator data table covering revenue, profitability, inventory, headcount and investment stage across all eleven operators in this report

• Strategic Outlook: where the sector goes from here, including the profitability frontier, the consolidation precedent and the geographic opportunity that Western European operators have largely ignored

Alternatively, a PDF version of this report is available to purchase here.

Read more

Key findings: FY2025 total net revenues RMB 21,048m (USD 3,010m) | +28.9% YoY | five-year CAGR ~34%. First full year of GAAP profitability in company history: operating income RMB 456m (USD 65m), net income RMB 336m (USD 48m). Non-GAAP operating income RMB 555m (USD 79m) at 2.6% margin, +35.5% YoY. 1P gross margin expanded 200bps to 13.8% as direct-to-consumer retail reached 36.8% of product revenues. Balance sheet conservative: disclosed liquidity of US$312.8m against short-term borrowings of US$46m and no long-term financial debt. NYSE market capitalisation of approximately $1bn against $3bn FY2025 revenues implies a sub-0.4x revenue multiple, a material discount to European marketplace peers despite the first full year of GAAP profitability. JD.com, ATRenew's largest shareholder and primary commercial partner, is acquiring CECONOMY, parent of MediaMarkt and Saturn, across more than 1,000 European stores; their cooperation agreement runs to December 2030. Full analysis available as a downloadable report at reports.finsur.co.uk.

Back in July 2025, JD.com announced the voluntary public takeover of CECONOMY, parent of MediaMarkt and Saturn. At €2.2 billion, the largest Chinese acquisition of a consumer electronics retailer was bound to attract regulatory scrutiny. After antitrust clearances in Germany, Italy and France, it fell to Austria’s foreign investment ministry to put a spanner in the works on the grounds of security, public order and critical infrastructure concerns. The Austrian outcome is now uncertain with a carve-out being floated as one solution. Regardless of that particular outcome, JD.com will end up controlling Europe’s largest physical consumer electronics retail network.

JD.com also happens to be ATRenew’s most important customer providing the primary upstream source of trade-in volume, a significant shareholder and the counterparty to a cooperation agreement renewed in March 2026 to run until December 2030. After management stated their intention to integrate with the international layout of their strategic partners back in Q3 last year and then the General Manager of International Business appeared on a CCS Circular Market panel in February this year, I’ve been wondering what ATRenew’s logistics, inspection, grading and pricing infrastructure does inside a JD.com-controlled European retail footprint. Let’s have a look…

Recap

AiHuiShou was founded in 2011 in Shanghai and subsequently renamed to ATRenew in September 2020. Nine months later in June 2021 ATRenew listed via IPO on the NYSE valuing the business at approximately $3.09bn. There’s a Cayman Island holding company with operations currently conducted entirely through Chinese subsidiaries via four operating divisions: AHS Recycle (C2B collections), PJT Marketplace (B2B merchant trading), Paipai Marketplace (B2C consumer resale) and AHS Device (international).

Paipai was integrated from JD.com in 2019 and as part of the agreement, JD led a new round of financing to become a significant shareholder, the primary upstream source via the AHS Recycle trade-in integration and the platform via which Paipai reaches consumers. The cooperation agreement runs to December 2030. In addition to JD, ATRenew have trade-in partnerships with Apple, Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo providing additional C2B supply. As at the end of 2025, ATRenew operated 2,195 AHS Recycle stores across China supported by door-to-door collection, express mail-in and more than 2000 proprietary self-service kiosks.

Revenue crossed $2bn in FY2024 and $3bn in FY2025 with a five-year CAGR from FY2020 to FY2025 of approximately 34%. FY2025 marked the first full year of GAAP operating profitability in the company’s history with multi-category recycling (gold & luxury goods) growing rapidly but still a small proportion of the overall mix; smartphones and consumer electronics remain the dominant category. Since the launch price of approximately $18 per share, the stock fell to a low of $1.08 at the beginning of 2024. Since then, there’s been a consistent rise back up to the $5-6 range1.

AHS Device’s international operations are active across Southeast Asia and the Middle East with monthly export volumes exceeding 10,000 units as of Q3 2025. The unit has also made equity investments in Cashify (India) and Trocafone (Brazil). They have partnered with Janpara (Japan) for self-service kiosks2 and collaborated with Swappie on kiosks in Sweden3.

Performance

Key Performance Metrics:

- Full Year FY2025 (year ending 31 December 2025):

- Total net revenues: RMB 21,048m | USD 3,010m | +28.9% YoY

- Net product revenues (1P): RMB 19,380m | USD 2,771m | +30.6% YoY | 92.1% of total

- Net service revenues (3P): RMB 1,668m | USD 239m | +12.4% YoY | 7.9% of total

- Implied gross profit: RMB 4,348m | USD 622m | ~20.7% margin (+60bps)

- 1P gross margin: 13.8% (FY2024: 11.8%, +200bps)

- GAAP income from operations: RMB 456m | USD 65m | 2.2% margin (+199bps)

- Non-GAAP income from operations: RMB 555m | USD 79m | 2.6% margin (+13bps)

- GAAP net income: RMB 336m | USD 48m (FY2024: net loss RMB 8m)

- Products transacted: 41.7 million (+18.1% YoY)

- AHS stores: 2,195 across 298 cities

Q4 FY2025:

- Total net revenues: RMB 6,254m | USD 894m | +29.0% YoY

- Net product revenues: RMB 5,831m | USD 834m | +30.7% YoY

- Net service revenues: RMB 423m | USD 61m | +8.8% YoY

- 1P gross margin: 13.7% (Q4 FY2024: 12.5%, +120bps)

- Non-GAAP income from operations: RMB 182m | USD 26m | 2.9% margin (+19bps)

- 1P-to-C retail share of product revenues: 41.7% (Q4 FY2024: 29.0%)

- Products transacted: 11.0 million (+17.0% YoY)

Q1 FY2026 guidance: RMB 5,860-5,960m | USD 838-852m | +25.9-28.1% YoY

Source: ATRenew Inc. Q4 and FY2025 earnings release and investor presentation, March 11, 2026

It’s probably worth addressing the scale differential upfront. In FY2025 ATRenew (ATR) transacted 41.7 million consumer products, up from 35.3m in FY2024. In Q4 alone, 11 million products were processed. For context, that’s roughly twice the size of the European organised secondary market4. It’s also worth noting that ATR reports under US GAAP with an explicit GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliation. If you’re unfamiliar or interested in the implications for revenue and profit presentation, check out the explanation in the Methodology section.

ATR operates two models. The first-party (1P) model involves buying the device outright, taking it onto the balance sheet and selling it on, bearing the inventory and price risk with revenue recorded at the full transaction value. The third-party (3P) model involves ATR providing the platform infrastructure and charging a commission or fee with the seller retaining the inventory. In practice AHS Recycle and Paipai are predominantly 1P and the PJT Marketplace, where merchants trade between themselves, is predominantly 3P generating the service revenue line.

Total FY2025 revenues increased to RMB 21,048m (USD 3,010m) beating the top-end guidance issued with the Q3 results, and increasing 28.9% YoY (FY2024: USD 2,237m). Net product revenues in the 1P business increased 30.6% to RMB 19,380m (USD 2,771m) representing 92.1% of the total. Net service revenues grew 12.4% to RMB 1,668m (USD 239m) with commissions and platform fee revenue representing 7.9% of the total.

Total Q4 FY2025 net revenues hit RMB 6,254m (USD 894m) which was a 29.0% increase on the same quarter in the previous year. This follows Tim Cook’s Q4 report of Apple’s “great quarter” riding the replacement wave in China from the iPhone17 launch which drove strong trade-in volumes. Net product revenues accounted for RMB 5,831m (USD 834m) growing 30.7% and net service revenues grew 8.8% to RMB 423m (USD 61m). Retail revenues in Q4, direct 1P sales to consumers, reached 41.7% of overall product revenues.

Continue reading for:

• What a 200 basis point gross margin improvement actually means for the operating model

• The one expense line growing twice as fast as revenue, and why management is relaxed about it

• Why the balance sheet tells a more interesting story than the headline cash figure suggests

Alternatively you can download the full pdf report here.

Read more

Market

There was one particular press release that did deserve some unpacking. In this instance a press release issued by PR agency Definition, implied that £23.47bn in unrealised UK trade-in value had been identified in a new research report collab between Alchemy & FDM CCS Insight1. That headline grabbing figure duly made its way into trade coverage including Mobile News2. But the attribution is misleading. The CCS Insight work is a separate piece of consumer research covering trade-in barriers, upgrade intent and loyalty across a combined US and UK sample3; the £23.47bn is a press office calculation derived from an entirely separate Censuswide survey of 2,000 UK adults, buried in the Notes to Editors, and based on consumers' self-reported perceived device values rather than actual secondary market prices, which makes it complete nonsense. Additionally, the press release methodology note manages to be internally inconsistent: 2.89 unused devices at £283.99 per household produces £820.50, which multiplied by 28.6 million UK households equals £23.47bn; but the note also states a per-household figure of £599.13, which would produce a total of £17.1bn, and implies an average device value of £207.31, not £283.99. None of this appears in the Alchemy/CCS published report, which contains genuinely useful data on structural trade-in barriers, which I also covered at the beginning of December last year in Europe’s Retention Problem.

Contrast these device values with what Virgin Media O2 reported to have paid out over the last year4 and the value gap perfectly illustrates the Alchemy/CCS top reason preventing trade-ins: values are too low. VMO2 paid out £6.6m to customers for approximately 85,500 devices. That averages out at £77.20, well below the consumer-perceived device value cited in the Censuswide survey. In addition to the value gap, other equally familiar reasons resurfaced in the VMO2 news release including 70% of customers worrying about personal data being accessed if they pass on or recycle their old smartphone. More than three quarters of customers said they would be more likely to recycle their old device if they could make money from it, while almost seven in 10 (68%) say they would be more likely to buy a refurbished device if they had greater confidence in its quality, perceived or otherwise.

Regardless of what the consumer thinks their device is worth, market values are probably the more reliable indicator. As first reported by MacRumors, in the US, Apple has decided that your iPhone 16 ProMax is worth up to $15 more than it was last month5. Looking at the UK, Apple came to a different conclusion and decided the same phone was now worth up to £65 less at £585, down from at least £650 in December, and at the time of writing a significant £128 below the open market. Across the complete iPhone range there are ups and down with the iPhone 15 Pro Max falling the most in percentage terms down 17.3% to £430 from £520, again £128 below the open market. Whether that’s coincidence or reflective of Apple’s internal pricing logic can’t be determined from this data set alone.

With the Galaxy S26 range on sale from 11 March, the contrast with Samsung's approach is instructive. Samsung is deliberately trading above open market to retain its mid-to-premium installed base6, Apple is trading below it on every device in the UK sample, including the newly launched iPhone 16e at £315 against an open market best offer of £357. The approach to loyalty via commercial logic running in opposite directions through the same purchase channel is worth watching.

I think the Strategic Circularity newsletter is worth a share and a signup if you’re keeping tabs on EU policy movement.

Companies

Samsung stepped away from their Samsung Care+ repair-at-all-costs policy that had sometimes frustrated customers. Until now, devices covered under the policy would not be replaced unless repair was physically impossible, with customers reporting waits of up to six weeks while components were sourced and replaced one by one.7 From the Galaxy S26 launch, Samsung Care+ now guarantees a replacement device dispatched within 48 hours of a claim being accepted in the UK, with worldwide coverage limited to in-store repair rather than advance exchange. Existing Care+ customers will receive the same benefits over the coming months; US availability remains unconfirmed. The shift is worth noting beyond the customer experience improvement. Replace-first rather than repair-first means Samsung now generates an increased stream of devices flowing back through its refurbishment and parts network, rather than repaired units going back to customers. Combined with the trade-in pricing strategy discussed above and in full here, it looks less like a standalone product update and more like Samsung continuing to tighten its grip on the full device lifecycle.

Following up on my Foxway Q4'25 article here, on their investor call at the beginning of the month, the CWS lease base contraction was confirmed by management; there was explicit Mobile guidance of tough conditions through the first two quarters of 2026, with the EUR/USD dynamic adding a new US import headwind; C&E is entering 2026 with elevated inventory at SEK 368m (~€33.7m) and DRAM pricing was described as stabilising in February; and full year operating cash flow sat at just SEK 1.0m (~€92k) against a working capital commitment of SEK 688m (~€63.1m). The overarching thread was that the business headed into 2026 with one segment carrying deliberate inventory risk, one rebuilding from a contracted lease base, and one navigating structural headwinds, all on a very thin cash generation base. Until, that is, Nordic Capital and Norvestor injected SEK 300m (~€27.5m) in fresh equity, citing sourcing opportunities driven by AI infrastructure investment and giving management the firepower to act on C&E momentum without touching the bond structure. Keep that tail a bit longer Mr Fox, and make hay…

Five months on from Refurbed’s €50m capital raise and it was great to read that the Austrian marketplace has passed €3 billion in cumulative GMV reaching the milestone in under 12 months after hitting the €2 billion mark in April 20258. The implied annual run rate of approximately €1 billion is broadly consistent with the 40% annual GMV growth the company cites, and aligns with the trajectory visible in its filed accounts9. The expansion into thirteen new European markets, including the UK, France, Spain and Poland, brings refurbed to 24 active markets and an addressable consumer base of 486 million. The company also cites a return to profitability, which readers of Finsur's September 2025 analysis will recall was achieved via strict cost control measures rather than any specific operational leverage. Still, it feels like there’s some momentum building and collaborations with new non-core OEMs like GoPro10 will open doors to other consumer electronics OEMs who, imho, are lagging well behind the mobile/tablet/laptop manufacturers in secondary lifecycle management. Good stuff.

Asurion has expanded its Complete Protect offering on Amazon, adding Norton 360 Deluxe cybersecurity protection, access to in-person repair services at nearly 700 uBreakiFix locations, a $100 annual credit towards maintenance of eligible furniture and appliances, and the removal of the previous 30-day waiting period for new claims, all at an unchanged monthly price of $16.9911. Complete Protect covers an unlimited quantity of eligible products purchased through Amazon, encompassing everything from laptops and gaming consoles to jewellery, rugs, mattresses, and sporting goods, provided purchase dates fall within 90 days of plan enrolment12. The product positions Asurion beyond device insurance and more as a household tech membership provider, shifting the value proposition from reactive break-fix coverage towards continuous utility aligning with Domestic & General’s subscription approach13. Those inclined to read the small print, however, will note that the T&Cs treat the cybersecurity component with some care. The plan documents describe the Norton benefits as third-party services subject to change, and explicitly state that use of them is deemed an assumption of all risks by the customer, with no liability attaching to Asurion, its administrator, or Amazon for any resulting data loss, financial loss, or reputational damage. With the press release describing Norton 360 as delivering "greater post-purchase confidence." the question is confidence for whom?

Assurant announced a new device protection partnership with Dutch flanker brand, hollandsnieuwe (HN)14. The new programme extends the existing Vodafone.nl relationship with the full-cover tier, the HN Uitgebreid at €11.95 per month and the Vodafone Garant Top at €19.00 delivering broadly comparable protection: accidental damage, defects outside warranty, theft in all forms, and loss. The Vodafone.nl product adds accessory cover up to €250, a 48-hour unauthorised use window versus 24 hours over the new HN product, alongside claims across the Benelux region rather than the Netherlands only, and express repair at no additional excess for Top policyholders. Against that, HN customers face lower excesses on every claim type: €30 versus €45 for damage, and €59 versus €100 for theft or loss. Whether those supplementary benefits justify a premium difference of €84.60 per year is a question consumers can now answer for themselves. The announcement demonstrates solid momentum in the Dutch market for Assurant having only announced a new programme with Odido back in September 2025.

Three quick fire wins from the unstoppable bolttech in the last month. Alongside Tre Sweden and Samsung, they launched Samsung Care Services with the product available exclusively through Tre’s direct sales channels15. Pretty much a standard offer covering device protection, global repair using genuine Samsung parts, and an extended battery warranty. It’s the latest in the rollout in the Samsung Bolttech journey and I’d give you a product overview if the T&Cs link pointed to the correct place. Teething issues, I’m sure. The second partnership announced was with MediaMarkt Spain to launch Alquílalo España, an electronics rental programme offering flexible contracts of 12 to 36 months, bundled damage cover, mid-contract upgrade options, and a circular return model16; the scheme went live on 5 March in 11 pilot stores and is expected to roll out across all MediaMarkt Spain locations by end of 2026, building on the existing partnership with MediaMarkt Poland. Rounding out, ASUS South Africa appointed bolttech Repairs South Africa as an authorised nationwide service partner from 1 March 2026, providing carry-in and courier repair services for both consumer and commercial ASUS devices, with typical turnaround targets of five working days for carry-in and nine for courier collections17. Busy month.

A class action filed in December 2023 by Maurice Blackburn against JB Hi-Fi, covering extended warranty sales dating back to 2011, is working its way through the Victorian Supreme Court with a sample trial scheduled for October 2026. The allegation is a familiar one in device protection circles: that the warranties largely duplicated rights consumers already held for free under Australian Consumer Law, and were sold using misleading conduct. With around eight million potential group members, the exposure is significant. Less visible is the fact that the warranties were underwritten by Virginia Surety Company and administered by The Warranty Group Australasia, both now part of Assurant, which faces an identical question in a parallel Maurice Blackburn action against Harvey Norman over its Product Care product. Despite TWG's involvement in both programmes, neither proceeding appears in Assurant's most recent 10-K filings suggesting the financial exposure might not be material, or perhaps just still unknown at this stage.

Investments

Other than Foxway’s SEK300m investment from existing investors noted above, the biggest news came from Cashify, the Gurugram-based recommerce platform as they gear up for an IPO. The company appointed ICICI Securities, JM Financial and Nomura as bankers in late March, targeting a raise of Rs 1,500–1,800 crore (~€160m–€192m), with early backers Bessemer Venture Partners, Olympus Capital Asia and Blume Ventures expected to take partial exits through an offer for sale component18. Confidential filing is planned for June to July, with listing expected in early 2027. The financial trajectory supports the ambition: FY25 operational revenue reached Rs 1,096 crore (~€117m), up approximately 17% year on year, while losses reduced 80% to Rs 10.5 crore (~€1.1m), driven by revenue growth rather than cost reduction alone. At the Series E post-money valuation of $248m on $133m revenue, Cashify was trading at roughly 1.9x revenue; the IPO target implies a more ambitious multiple on a materially improved financial profile. The parallel with Servify's own IPO preparations is hard to ignore: two Indian device lifecycle platforms, both approaching public markets in the same window, suggest the sector is achieving solid momentum in the subcontinent.

Following up on the bolttech/MoneyHero acquisition news I reported on last month, talks appear to have stalled. According to DealStreetAsia19, negotiations have been complicated by an internal investigation into MoneyHero's board chairman Kenneth Chan, with no binding agreement reached and all parties publicly silent on next steps.

Peace,

sb.

Key Findings: Samsung’s trade-in programme operates a structured loyalty premium across at least three markets, confirmed by Omdia Smartphone Research analysis of the Malaysia S26 pre-order period. UK data shows Samsung-origin devices trading consistently above open market while non-Samsung premium devices trade below, through the same purchase flow. Order of magnitude modelling suggests the UK loyalty premium alone could run to approximately £19 million annually, comparable in scale to the New Galaxy Club liability estimate.

Since late 2024, I’ve been examining how OEMs are industrialising lifecycle control as a structural response to stagnating primary device sales in mature western markets. Samsung has been central to that thesis and the analysis of their New Galaxy Club in the UK (now back on sale), identified a mechanism that may have become constrained by its own design. The 50% residual guarantee was commercially coherent but generated a balance sheet liability that is costly to scale under IFRS15. The conclusion was not that the strategic direction was wrong, but the chosen mechanism needs adjusting.

The analysis is another chapter. In late February 2026, Samsung launched the Galaxy S26 campaign. In Malaysia, Omdia’s Smartphone Research analysis of that programme1 made the commercial logic unusually legible. Covering more than 2600 device SKUs across 20 brands, it found a structure precise enough to constitute policy: Samsung origin devices received exactly double the trade-in subsidy of every competitor brand, across every device tier, without exception. Welcome to the overtrade.

Mechanism

The Samsung online purchase flow is straightforward. A customer selects a new device variant and agrees they have a device to trade-in or not. If they do, there’s simple brand, model and storage selection fields to complete at which point a trade-in offer is presented. Add the IMEI and the discount is applied to the basket. All very Apple and very unlike the clunky UK carrier journeys that do nothing to remove friction from a process that needs to be teflon2. That sequencing itself is analytically important. Samsung shows the number first and asks for commitment second.

In both the UK and Germany markets analysed, the trade-in programme is administered through a named trade-in partner. In the UK, the acquiring party is MTR Group Limited, who takes ownership of the existing device on full inspection3. In Germany, processing and acquisition is handled by CTDI Soemmerda GmbH, with the purchase contract for the existing device concluded directly with CTDI4. Samsung sets the trade-in value presented in the purchase flow and the partner handles physical processing and onward trading.

Blueprint

The Omdia Smartphone Research analysis covers Samsung Malaysia’s S26 pre-order programme across the period 26 February to 10 March 2026. The same partner-mediated structure operates there: Samsung pays a fixed overtrade subsidy to a trade-in partner, who presents a blended figure to the consumer. The architecture across Malaysia, the UK and Germany is consistent. What differs is visibility and what the Omdia analysis provides is legibility.

Continue reading for:

• The full UK and Germany trade-in data matrix, including Google Pixel and Xiaomi comparators, with gap analysis against open market benchmarks

• A cost model for the loyalty premium across both markets, benchmarked against the New Galaxy Club liability

• The competitive implications for independent trade-in operators and secondary market retailers

Alternatively, this article can be downloaded as a pdf file here.

Read more

Key Findings: asgoodasnew reported €144.3m revenue in FY2024 (+6.1% YoY), with domestic own-platform sales exceeding €100m for the first time, but missing management guidance by €7.7m as the deliberate withdrawal from international marketplaces took effect. Gross profit declined to €19.2m at a 13.3% margin (FY2023: 14.5%) as aged stock clearance offset the channel strategy benefits, whilst a cost base built for €152m delivered a net loss of €6.9m, more than doubling the prior year. Management's Value Creation Plan revisits the €151m revenue target and monthly profitability in FY2025.

The cyberattack on asgoodasnew (AGAN) at the beginning of the month1, exploiting a Klarna payment module vulnerability, wasn’t the type of news that any business owner or customer wants to hear about. The only positive is that it serves as a timely reminder to the secondary device sector that despite the noble sustainability mission, there’s no immunity from bad actors.

According to the management report in AGAN's recently filed FY2024 accounts, there's seemingly no immunity from the gap between predictions and reality either. FY2024 was characterised as a deliberate transformation year, one defined by channel simplification, organisational investment and a rebuild of the underlying IT infrastructure (uh oh); coherent and well presented framing, not without merit. But the accounts offer a more complicated story, and the distance between the narrative and the performance appears to have been harder to bridge. Let’s take a look…

Recap

AGAN is one of the leading specialist refurb retailers in Europe beginning life in 2008 and operating through two connected brands: WIRKAUFENS for acquiring devices from consumers and asgoodasnew for selling them back, to different consumers, one hopes. The product lines extend beyond mobile phones and include tablets, laptops, digital cameras/lenses and other CE items. They operate two locations: Frankfurt (Oder) for refurbishment operations and an HQ in Berlin. The business is led by Co-CEOs, Dr. Tim Seewöster and Stefan Groitl.

Just over a year ago in the European Marketplace Research Update2, I covered AGAN alongside Rebuy, Refurbed and Swappie and others, describing the business as being on a relatively stable financial footing and executing on a plan. AGAN, unlike Refurbed and Back Market, owns the full value chain; buying, refurbishing and selling directly, a model that demands more capital but offers greater control over quality, pricing and the customer relationship.

At that point, FY2023 data showed sustained, albeit modest progress with revenue improving, gross margin ticking up and a management team that confidently guided towards further revenue gains in FY2024 and a slightly positive EBITDA. The FY2024 filing up to 31/12/2024 is the first opportunity to assess whether that confidence was well placed.

Performance

FY2024 Key Performance Metrics

- Revenue: €144.3m (FY2023: €136.0m, +6.1%)

- Gross Profit: €19.2m at 13.3% margin (FY2023: €19.7m at 14.5%)

- Net Loss: €(6.9)m (FY2023: €(3.2)m)

- Cash: €3.4m (FY2023: €3.9m)

- Bank Debt: €14.6m (FY2023: €9.5m, +54%)

- Equity Ratio: 21% (FY2023: 43%)

- Employees: 171 average, generating €844k revenue per head (FY2023: 151 at €901k)

Source: asgoodasnew electronics GmbH (HRB 12158) filed accounts for the year ending 31 December 2024

I like German company accounts. First, they are readily available, delivered simply and directly via the government interface. Second, there appears to be no “notice of non-disclosure” to hide behind. Third, the management summaries very often provide the economic and strategic context in which the business operates. Now, it’s entirely feasible that the data can be challenged, but at least there’s a starting point for the analysis and discussion. So for context, according to AGAN’s FY2024 filing, German GDP contracted 0.2% in 2024, e-commerce recovered a modest 1.1% after an 11.8% decline in 2023 and whilst consumer caution persisted, management quoted that 50% of 19 - 39 year olds indicated they buy pre-loved goods more frequently3.

So, whilst there wasn’t exactly a tailwind, FY2024 revenue growth of 6.1% YoY to €144.3m (FY2023: €136.0m) missed management guidance by €7.7m, or approximately 5%. Close enough? Domestic sales generated €109.9m, up 13.6% (FY2023: €96.7m), with their own platform exceeding €100m up 17%, leaving approximately €10m flowing through what I assume are third-party marketplaces or trading channels. That implies tactical sales optimisation is operating effectively in the home market. International revenues fell 12.3% to €34.5m (FY2023: €39.3m) after deliberately pulling back from third-party marketplaces. Clearly there’s a marketing spend v commission v profit trade-off but the net effect this time appears to have compressed growth. Perhaps not materially, but enough to take a decent chunk out of the revenue guidance.

The closest direct analogue is Rebuy. Same model, same contracting home market against which AGAN’s 6.1% headline growth stands out against Rebuy’s 3.3% top line improvement, although excluding media, their consumer electronics revenue grew 5.7%. Swappie’s 20% revenue growth came from international markets as their home market (Finland) declined 13.1% and was explicitly driven by increased marketing investment.

Management, as might be reasonably expected, don’t provide product line or grade mix splits in the accounting notes. Therefore, a review of the website listings at the time of writing shows 726 SKUs of which approximately 51% are Apple and 49% Android across Samsung, Google Pixel, Xiaomi, Huawei and other brands. Whilst that isn’t a reliable proxy for revenue mix, in the UK, Apple has historically commanded approximately 75% of device revenues on 55% volume share4, illustrating the ASP premium that Apple carries over Android. The UK and German markets differ, but the underlying dynamic, that Apple buyers trade up on grade and specification more consistently than Android buyers is broadly applicable. Applied to AGAN’s roughly 51% Apple SKU share, a revenue contribution of 65% - 70% from Apple feels conservative rather than aggressive, and implies a blended ASP in the €300 to €320 range. I’m not bothering to untangle marginal VAT here so taking it directionally and applying it to the €144.3m revenue implies approximately 315k to 340k unit sell through.

Continue reading for:

• The cost structure that turned a revenue miss into a doubling of losses

• The warranty provision revealing more about customer retention than the P&L

• What’s riding on the Value Creation Plan

Alternatively, the full report is available in PDF format here.

Read more

Key Findings: US carriers generated $63.5bn in equipment revenue in FY2025 at a combined loss of $9.7bn | Q4 revenue up 11.6% YoY across T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon | Assurant Devices Serviced 22.7m, down 5.8% YoY; average trade-in age at all-time high of 3.88 years | UK like-for-like market declined 9.3% in Q4; BT Consumer and VMO2 down a combined 8.7% | Telefónica España the standout European performer at +18.6% for the full year | Vodafone Germany the weakest major market at -16.8% | A1 Telekom grew 9.0% with eastern markets doing the heavier lifting; Telia declined 9.2% led by Sweden | Record US upgrade cycle may not have translated into secondary market volume; fewer devices at higher per-unit values.

Back in October, Counterpoint reported first-ten-day (whatever natural cycle that represents) sell-through in the US and China running 14% ahead of the iPhone 16, with the base model in China described as selling at almost double the equivalent iPhone 16 pace1. Record units, Record ASPs.

By December 2025, the analyst consensus on the iPhone17 had shifted up a notch from exhilaration to euphoria. IDC called Apple’s performance “phenomenal”, pointing to surging demand in China, the US and Western Europe. They forecast a record 247million iPhone shipments and attributed almost the entirety of the global smartphone growth recovery, back up to their 1.5% prediction, based on “outstanding demand for the iPhone 17 series”2. Good job given their latest prediction of a 12.9% decline in 20263.

So now the micro-plastics and tooling swarf have settled somewhat, this quarterly tracker aims to get into the carrier equipment revenue data, initially across North America and Europe, to highlight what actually sold and what that selling might, or might not have set in motion. The data is drawn or derived directly from operator financial filings rather than shipment trackers which, I hope, tells a more granular story.

Q4 2025 In Brief

Whilst Western Europe got a mention in the predictions, the strong iPhone 17 cycle concentrated in the US and China rather than playing out as the global event the forecasters implied. Apple's record shipment numbers appear, in significant part, to be supported by US carrier subsidy intensity as the three major carriers widened their equipment losses in FY2025, paying more per unit to generate the upgrade activity that produced the headlines. But, as CIRP reported at the beginning of February4, a sharp increase in average selling prices was a material factor with the US weighted average retail price hitting $1,077 in Q4 2025, the highest on record, up from $953 a year earlier.

Analysts attributed the sales strength to pent-up demand from an estimated 315m users worldwide who had not upgraded for four or more years5. That cohort is now moving, although the carrier equipment revenue data tells a more geographically uneven story than the headline figures imply. Even within the US, the record equipment revenues sit alongside some less obvious data points that complicate the picture.

Beyond the headline US numbers, the carrier data covers North America including Canada, the UK, the major European operator groups and a selection of smaller European carriers whose results illuminate one of the more distinctive patterns in this edition: the divergence between mature Western European markets and those at an earlier stage of the device replacement cycle. The regional sections that follow cover the major operators that disclose equipment revenues in sufficient detail to draw meaningful conclusions.

Whilst not all carriers file their equipment revenues, or at least not obviously, the following regional sections cover the major companies that do…

Continue reading for:

• How T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon collectively lost $9.7bn selling devices in FY2025, and why they did it anyway

• The Canadian carriers as a control group: what a rational competitive structure actually looks like

• Why the UK missed the iPhone 17 cycle and the structural reasons it is likely to miss the next one too

• The 31 percentage point gap within a single European carrier that tells the two-speed story more clearly than any macro data

Read more

Key Findings: FY2025 net sales SEK 7,833.6m | ~€675.3m | +3.2% cc, driven entirely by C&E (+12.0% cc) as CWS and Mobile both declined. C&E margin expanded from 4.8% to 8.5% on AI infrastructure demand that management itself attributes to external tailwind. Group AdjOp. EBITDA declined 3.8% to SEK 292.0m | ~€25.2m. Operating cash flow collapsed to SEK 1.0m as interest consumed 44.6% of EBITDA. Bond fair value implies mid-70s cents versus par a year ago; covenant headroom narrows from approximately €87m to approximately €26m at the July 2027 step down.

Boggis, Bunce and Bean, one fat, one short, one lean. These horrible crooks, so different in looks, were nonetheless equally mean. The three demands on Foxway’s cash are equally unforgiving: the interest bill, working capital and investment. Let’s hope Patrick Höijer can keep his tail.

Recap

This is the fourth Finsur article on Foxway1, so only a gentle reminder of the operating model with three reporting segments: Circular Workspace Solutions (CWS) providing device-as-a-service solutions for workspace equipment to mid/large corporates and the public sector in the Nordics; Recommerce Mobile (Mobile) providing trade-in solutions and asset recovery services for smartphones, focusing on mobile operators, retailers and partners, and; Recommerce Computers & Enterprise (C&E) handling computers, business equipment and network products sourced from OEMs, financing companies, data-centres and resellers.

Foxway's previous results have been characterised by generally improving performance at the company level balancing revenue and profit variability in the reporting segments. This time last year CWS collapsed 35% after a significant client loss, Mobile was the profit engine delivering 12.6% operational EBITDA margin and C&E lagged at 4.8% margin with persistent low overstock volumes pressuring returns. H1 2025 continued the challenging dynamic with overall revenue down 7.0% YoY; CWS swung to an operational EBITDA loss whilst the Mobile and C&E segments quietly delivered 20%+ EBITDA growth. With Q3 FY2025 showing some stabilisation, the question for management was whether the final quarter would be enough to salvage the year.

In my Q2 2025 article I examined the debt covenant and concluded that Foxway was above the 4.50x threshold and therefore locked out of any meaningful M&A. In January this year, after Foxway announced the acquisition of ABD in Romania, I reviewed the covenant terms again and corrected my analysis to exclude sale and leaseback liabilities and use the Alternative Net Debt value which came in at 3.30x giving approximately €72m of headroom. The ABD acquisition, a Romanian computer refurbishment business with SEK 110m in revenues, completed post quarter and served as the first practical test of that revised headroom.

With Nordic Capital now well into their third year of ownership and the transformation from growth to sustainable profitability being led by CEO Patrick Höijer now for the last 18 months, the numbers in the Q4 FY2025 release looked strong. But as this coverage has repeatedly demonstrated, the headline numbers at Foxway can obscure as much as they reveal. Let’s dive in…

Performance

Key Performance Metrics

- Net Sales: SEK 7,833.6m (€675.3m), +0.4% reported, +3.2% cc

- Q4 Net Sales: SEK 2,129.3m (€183.6m), +17.4% reported, +22.9% cc

- C&E Full Year: SEK 2,612.4m (€225.1m), +7.6% reported, +12.0% cc

- CWS Full Year: SEK 2,473.6m (€213.2m), -2.1% reported, -1.1% cc

- Mobile Full Year: SEK 2,828.4m (€243.8m), -5.4% reported, -2.3% cc

- AdjOp. EBITDA: SEK 292.0m (€25.2m), -3.8%, margin 3.5%

- Adjusted EBITDA: SEK 706.4m (€60.9m), +3.0%, margin 9.0%

- Operating Cash Flow: SEK 1.0m (€0.1m), FY2024: SEK 292.1m

- Alternative Net Debt: SEK 2,172.0m (€187.2m), leverage 3.07x

- Net Loss: SEK -547.6m (€-47.2m) incl. SEK 350.4m goodwill impairment

Q4 top line net sales grew 17.4% (22.9% constant currency) to SEK 2,129.3m (€183.6m) resulting in the strongest quarterly revenue in Foxway’s reporting history. Importantly, all reporting segments contributed growth which is the first time that’s happened since coverage began. The Q4 acceleration just about saved the year, papering over the weakness of the first three quarters, with 0.4% or 3.2% on a constant currency (cc) basis growth to SEK 7,833.6m (€675.3m). It would be easy to claim the Q4 result suggests some momentum, but the full-year results are more indicative of three businesses still finding their rhythm: the growth was entirely driven by C&E (+12.0%) with CWS (-1.1%) and Recommerce Mobile (-2.3%) declining on a full-year basis. The full year picture is beginning to reveal three stories beyond simple variability.

C&E: Q4 net sales grew 22.1% (31.0% cc) to SEK 774.3m (€66.7m) offering the standout performance result by a considerable margin. CE had been the most consistent of the three segments, trading in a narrow quarterly range of the prior seven quarters, making the Q4 breakout notable. Full year net sales increased 7.6% to SEK 2,612.4m (€225.1m) or 12.0% cc ending the year as the only segment delivering full year growth and the sole driver of group level constant currency improvement. Management attributed the Q4 surge to enterprise equipment demand driven by AI data centre capacity expansion, with pricing levels continuing to increase through the quarter.

At Teqcycle, Foxway’s premium refurbished computer brand, volumes more than doubled YoY scaling across European markets and the ABD acquisition will add additional computer refurbishment capacity. Höijer framed the acquisition as building a second processing hub, mirroring the Tartu mobile facility in Estonia. That’s a strategic bet on C&E’s trajectory continuing despite overstock and computer recovery services remaining below prior years, implying Teqcycle and enterprise equipment are expected to become the segment’s dominant revenue drivers.

The key question looking at C&E is how much of the upswing is the AI infrastructure cycle (cyclical) versus Foxway’s improved positioning in enterprise refurbishment (structural). The year end report describes C&E’s performance as driven by an “AI-led market upswing” and references supply chain disruptions leading to rising prices and increased market activity; management’s own framing appears to lean on the external tailwind rather than operational execution. Höijer also emphasised AI driven memory chip shortages as a key factor and indicated that major hardware vendors are signalling significant price increases across key product segments heading into 20262. Whilst this is positive for C&E’s near term outlook, it reinforces the view that current performance is partly supply-constrained pricing rather than pure volume growth.

CWS: Q4 net sales improved 22.3% (24.0% CC) to SEK 625.1m (€53.9m). The growth was driven by first lifecycle device sales as newly onboarded customers from the Q1 2025 contract signings finally began to flow through the P&L.

The lease component is worth a closer look. Operational net sales, which includes the value of leased devices, increased 15.5% to SEK 730.1m (€62.9m) lagging the net sales. The implied lease component shrank from SEK 120.9m (€10.4m) in Q4 2024 to SEK 105.0m (€9.1m), a 13% decline. The full year confirms the pattern. Operational net sales SEK 2,904.1m (€250.3m) vs SEK 3,017.1m (€259.9m), -3.7%; the lease component contracted 12.2% from SEK 490.6m (€42.3m) to SEK 430.5m (€37.1m). This implies the new customer onboarding is weighted towards outright equipment procurement rather than the recurring DaaS model that forms the basis of the CWS proposition. Fewer devices on lease also means fewer coming off lease, explaining the decline in second lifecycle sales that management flagged.

CWS full year net sales SEK 2,473.6m (€213.2m) vs SEK 2,526.5m (€217.7m), -2.1% reported, -1.1% constant currency; so despite Q4’s recovery the full year was still negative. The 2024 customer churn event and replacement freezes from major clients weighed on the first three quarters. But with new customer onboarding starting to show revenue impact from Q3, management implementing a new operating model during Q4 and launching a new customer portal, the strong pipeline should assist continued revenue recovery through FY2026.

Mobile: The 6.0% increase in Q4 net sales to SEK 753.1m (€64.9m) on a 10.9% cc basis looks like a recovery at first, but needs unpacking. Management explicitly stated that Q4 revenue growth was “largely driven by price discounts in effort to reduce inventory levels ahead of Q1 2026”, implying the volume was bought with margin, not organic demand improvement.

The clearance pattern echoes last year. Management entered 2025 excited about the Samsung Galaxy S25 launch driving Q1 trade-in volumes (and it did), then spent the middle quarters selling through Samsung inventory before discounting in Q4 probably to clear ahead of the next cycle. As noted in my Q4 FY2024 article, I was sceptical that any phone launch would be the vanguard of a supercycle and the FY2025 trajectory suggests this is becoming an annual working capital treadmill rather than a growth catalyst.

The Apple side of the equation is arguably more concerning. iPhone launches in September/October should drive a Q4 sourcing surge, but Foxway has consistently found it difficult to benefit. The Q3 report explicitly stated the expected post-iPhone seasonal uplift had not materialised, with every quarterly report throughout 2025 flagging Apple sourcing as challenging due to competitors accepting lower margins and high market prices on popular models. Foxway's mobile sourcing is increasingly dependent on one OEM's product cycle whilst being priced out of the other. This is beginning to feel like a capability gap.

Full year net sales ended down 5.4% or down 2.3% (cc) at SEK 2,828.4m (€243.8m) versus SEK 2,988.6m (€257.4m) in FY2024. The decline was driven by slower sourcing activities early in the year, weaker Marketplace sales, a failure of the expected post-iPhone seasonal uplift to materialise, and continued aggressive competitor pricing particularly on Apple products. In the year end interview, Höijer conceded there were “some temporary headwinds” and when pressed on whether the weakness was structural, pivoted to talking about the market size rather than answering the question directly. Whether the stated priorities of margin improvement, sourcing optimisation and platform development (including AI based trade-in grading) are enough to beat the competition in the Apple auctions, is very much an open question.

Continue reading for:

• Why C&E’s record margins may not be what they seem and what it means for the PE thesis

• The balance sheet dynamics behind a business generating SEK 706m in EBITDA and SEK 1m in operating cash flow

• Three events converging within eighteen months that will define whether this is a credit recovery or a restructuring conversation

Alternatively, this article is available as a PDF here.

Read more

Market

A few days earlier the GSMA released their commissioned report: A Dynamic Framework for the Assessment of Horizontal Mergers1. The timing was deliberate; the Commission is currently consulting on revisions to its Merger Guidelines, and the telecoms industry wants its arguments baked into the new approach. BRG’s Xavier Boutin et al argue that the Commission's current framework is structurally biased towards short term price effects and subjects pro-competitive claims to a far stricter test that merging parties have never successfully met. The authors propose a three step framework that would require the Commission to identify all relevant dimensions of competition (including investment and quality, not just price), assess both pro and anti competitive "theories of competitive effects" symmetrically, and evaluate efficiencies under the same standard as harms. They argue no legislative change is needed; only updated guidance. The telecoms case study is the heart of the document and reads as a methodical post mortem of the Commission’s handling of Three/O2, Orange/MásMóvil and Three/Telefónica Ireland, contrasting these unfavourably with the FCC’s approach to T-Mobile/Sprint and the CMA’s treatment of Vodafone/Three. The core argument is that mobile networks are scale businesses where mergers improve the profitability of investment through larger subscriber bases and combined spectrum holdings, and that the Commission has repeatedly failed to engage with this reality in any quantitative depth. The report is, in essence, the intellectual scaffolding for the industry’s long-running campaign to further consolidate across the European markets, and with the 6G spectrum preamble underway2, a change in guidance couldn’t come soon enough.

Similar effects are likely from the UK Government Department for Science Innovation and Technology (DSIT) draft policy paper catchily entitled: Statement of Strategic Priorities for telecommunications, the management of radio spectrum, and postal services3. Give it a click if you’re really into the political drivers of consolidation, otherwise the DSIT separately published a Mobile Market Review call for evidence on 10 February, open until 21 April, which treats the three-operator UK market as settled and turns its attention to whether the policy and regulatory framework can sustain the investment needed for standalone 5G by 20304. Industry estimates put the cost at up to £34bn, against average annual MNO capex of £2bn between 2020 and 2024. While the review is overwhelmingly network focused, several threads deserve attention from anyone interested in the potential downstream effects. First, DSIT dedicates significant space to eSIM adoption, citing Juniper estimates of 440% growth in travel eSIM users over five years and potential operator revenue losses exceeding $11bn globally. Second, easier switching weakens the contract renewal moment on which carrier distributed device insurance, trade in programmes and managed upgrade cycles have traditionally relied. If consumers can hop providers without changing handset, the incentive structures that feed both protection attachment and the supply of trade in devices back into refurbishment channels begin to loosen. Third, the continued growth of MVNOs and the entry of fintechs like Revolut and Monzo into connectivity products compounds this; these channels rarely operate device lifecycle programmes at anything like the scale of the major MNOs. The document also flags that mobile services were 25% cheaper in real terms in 2024 than in 2019, which, combined with rising capex obligations, may push operators to lean harder into ancillary revenue lines like device financing, insurance and trade in as margin recovery tools, or alternatively to deprioritise them entirely in favour of core network spend. The direct to device satellite partnerships flagged in the review, notably Vodafone's investment in AST SpaceMobile and VMO2's tie up with Starlink, perhaps imply that D2D-capable hardware could become a catalyst for upgrade cycles, with knock on effects for the volume and vintage of devices entering the secondary market.

Notably absent from the entire document is any mention of repair, refurbishment, circular economy obligations or device sustainability. For a strategic review of a market in which circularity is an increasingly important growth vector, employer and solution to some of the UK’s WEEE problem, the omission is striking. Perhaps the responsibility is being left to the practically invisible 18-person Circular Economy Taskforce Committee and their delayed (early 2026) Circular Economy Strategy. Obviously they didn’t mean too early in 2026 especially now the committee Chair and Deputy Chair’s times are already up5. F.F.S.

Hop across the North Sea however, and despite all that nasty European legislation, it appears Germany has managed to publish its draft transposition of the EU Right to Repair Directive, with rules applying from 31 July 20266. Smartphone and tablet manufacturers will be legally obliged to repair defective products on consumer request even after the two year warranty has expired, free of charge or at a reasonable price within a reasonable time. The obligation lasts as long as ecodesign rules require spare parts availability; for smartphones, that means batteries, display assemblies and speakers for a minimum of seven years from when the model ceases production7. Consumers who choose repair over replacement during warranty get a one year extension. Critically, manufacturers are prohibited from using software or technical protection measures that hinder repair, including by independent third parties, and cannot mandate the use of original spare parts. They must also supply parts and tools at a reasonable price. For the device protection and repair market, the combined effect is substantial: this is not just a right to ask for repair, it is a legal framework designed to keep independent and third party repair viable across the device's useful life.

I wasn’t getting quite enough out of my Economist subscription to renew it, but just before it ended, I came across an article highlighting that smartphone ownership might be more tightly packed across the age range brackets than previously thought8. No longer can we aim our outrage at Gen-Z or Gen-Alpha for being glued to their phone screens. Increasingly we are to be outraged at the outraged as the 65 plussers tap in their Wordle guesses at the local National Trust cafe. Adjust your marketing accordingly.

I’m always keen to read about and promote organisations, especially not-for-profits, working to advance the sector. Material Focus is one such organisation, "on a mission to stop the valuable, critical and finite materials inside electricals from going to waste”', funded by the UK’s Extended Producer Responsibility regulations. They offer insight and occasionally funding. If you didn’t know about them, you might well be paying for them, so worth a look.

Companies

First up, congratulations to Closing The Loop on reaching eight million collections through their one-for-one partner programme9. It’s a significant milestone for the firm and behind the numbers, the real-world impacts are perhaps even more important:

• 440 tonnes of e-waste not ending up in landfills and responsibly managed

• 95% of the valuable metals and raw materials recovered and returned in the value chain

• an estimated 19,500 living wages created within collection networks

• safer working conditions and stable income for hundreds of collectors

All of them fantastic achievements in their own right demonstrating the impact of sustainability operating at scale. Good stuff.

Despite my temporary annoyance every time I go to pick up French company accounts, congratulations also to Back Market for closing their 2025 with over $3.5bn in global GMV, representing 32% year on year growth10. The company also delivered its largest Black Friday in history with 41% year on year growth during the period. Growth was driven by repeat purchasing and category expansion beyond smartphones into laptops, tablets, gaming consoles and audio. At an estimated average selling price of $330 and industry-standard marketplace commissions, that implies roughly 10.6 million transactions and platform revenue in the region of $500m. In France, their first and most mature market, the business delivered 35% EBITDA margins. Separately, the company has reached EBITDA break-even at the global level, which implies that the profitable European operation is currently funding US market entry. Core US test markets grew more than 40 percentage points faster than the company average in 2025. Non-smartphone categories now represent roughly 40% of US GMV, and nearly 50% of Gen Z consumers say their next smartphone will be refurbished. According to Joy Howard, Back Market's CMO, replacement lifecycles are extending as devices increasingly function as access points to cloud-delivered intelligence rather than standalone performance machines. I'm still trying to decipher whether that's a genuine structural thesis or marketing poetry.

CECONOMY's Q1 2025/26 results (October to December) revealed that refurbished product sales across its MediaMarktSaturn network increased nearly fivefold year on year to 205,000 units, a data point the company chose to surface exclusively in its investor presentation rather than the press release or statutory quarterly report11. The volume growth is genuinely striking and signals that Europe's largest consumer electronics retailer is embedding secondary devices into its omnichannel model rather than treating them as a peripheral experiment. That said, 205,000 units against €7.6bn in quarterly group sales remains a rounding error in revenue terms; even at generous ASP assumptions, refurbished likely accounts for around 1% of turnover. The fivefold increase tells you more about how small the base was than how large the business has become. CECONOMY is clearly positioning refurbished alongside Retail Media (+85% income growth) and Services & Solutions (+13.7%) as proof points for its margin diversification strategy, and the direction of travel matters, but the destination is still a long way off.

The Best Buy deal has done some heavy lifting, driving Assurant's Connected Living segment to deliver 12% revenue growth in FY2025, reaching $5.4 billion and breaking out of four years of effective stagnation12. However, Adjusted EBITDA of $506m grew just 3.7%, compressing margins from 11.0% in FY2022/23 to 9.4%. The disconnect is more striking when set against the operational backdrop: devices serviced through trade-in and upgrade programmes have declined 21% over three years to 22.7 million units, even as carrier partners reported record handset sales. Revenue is accelerating, earnings are barely keeping pace, and device volumes are moving in the opposite direction. It’s a shame the results came out a week after the Circular Markets event, otherwise we could have probed their Connected Living chief with a question that that didn’t involve an AI-stack answer. In-depth downloadable report available here.

Samsung announced a significant expansion of its Care+ device protection service across 17 European markets, effective 19 January 202613. The enhanced offering now includes unlimited accidental damage repairs, 175 walk-in repair locations, coverage while travelling abroad (with the previous 60 day trip limit removed), and a free battery replacement when capacity drops below 80% after the standard warranty expires. Customers can opt for monthly rolling payments for up to 60 months with the freedom to cancel at any time, or a two year upfront plan. Optional theft and loss coverage is also available, with replacement devices dispatched within 48 hours and Samsung Knox Guard used to remotely block missing devices. The service, which covers phones, tablets, wearables and PCs, is underwritten by AmTrust Specialty Limited and administered by bolttech Device Protection (Ireland) Limited. That’s a win from Assurant I think.

It’s not all bad news for Assurant’s European team though. They did launch a net new mobile insurance plan with Chase in the UK14. Chase Protect offers the usual bank bundle of worldwide travel insurance, mobile phone insurance, and Breakdown Cover, available at a fixed monthly rate of £12.50. The mobile insurance cover protects you, your partner or spouse, and all children (under the age of 18, or under 24 if in full time education) living at your home address against loss, theft, damage and technical faults, up to £2,000 per claim for repair or replacement, replacement of accessories up to a value of £250 and there’s up to 4 approved claims in any 12-month period. Standard fayre. According to the release, Chase serves over two millions customers in the UK (not sure if they are all current account customers) which at a 4%-6% attachment rate, means the programme could get to 80k-120k subs. Big swings, mini-roundabouts.

Raylo Group Limited filed its FY2025 accounts (year ended 30 September 2025) and the numbers were pretty decent. Revenue grew 49% to £41.5m, billing subscriptions jumped 63% to 151,056 and, most notably, the group posted its first statutory operating profit at £1.5m, a meaningful swing from the prior year’s £1.1m operating loss. EBITDA nearly doubled to £10.9m at a 26% margin, whilst gross margins ticked up to 77% from 74%. The existing customer book continues to do the work, generating £12.2m in operating profit before £10.9m of new customer acquisition investment dragged the consolidated number back down. ARR hit £48.4m, representing 17% forward momentum over statutory revenue, which suggests next year’s top line has another decent step up baked in. The loss for the year narrowed to £3.8m from £5.4m, although still weighed down by £5.3m in financing costs which remind you this remains a capital hungry model despite the “subscription infrastructure” platform messaging. Still, for a business that was EBITDA negative just two years ago, the trajectory is difficult to fault. In-depth downloadable report available here.

Foxway released their Q4 2025 year end report15, and the headline numbers were strong: net sales of SEK 2,129.3m (€183.6m) grew 22.9% in constant currency with adjusted operational EBITDA up 43% to SEK 124.5m (€10.7m). The real story, again, is the segment divergence underneath. Recommerce C&E, the weakest segment just twelve months ago, delivered 245% EBITDA growth on the back of AI driven enterprise equipment demand, while Recommerce Mobile, previously the profitability engine, saw margins decline from 12.6% to 4.5% as management deliberately discounted to clear inventory. CWS showed Q4 recovery but also absorbed a SEK 350.4m (€30.2m) goodwill impairment, signalling a downward rebasing of medium term expectations for the segment. Full year operating cash flow evaporated to SEK 1.0m from SEK 292.1m, and alternative net debt rose 20% to SEK 2,172.0m (€187.2m). I will publish a full analysis on Friday.

Investments

Either there’s been very little activity, or I’ve managed to miss the hot deals in our part of the Circular Economy last month. The highlight appears to be the news that bolttech are in talks to acquire MoneyHero16. The Singapore headquartered, NASDAQ listed personal finance aggregation platform provides services for credit cards, personal loans, mortgages, wealth, insurance, and other financial products connecting the providers of these products with matched and ready-to-transact consumers. The thesis eludes me, other than both companies have some common backing via Richard Li’s Pacific Century Group. Oh, hold on… Bolttech, valued at $2.1 billion after last year's Series C, considered and shelved a US IPO two years ago. MoneyHero is already NASDAQ listed with a market cap of $60 million. Acquiring MoneyHero hands Bolttech a public listing without the inconvenience of an IPO process, which would require the sort of financial transparency that lets the market, rather than a private funding round, determine what the company is actually worth. A reverse takeover is a far stronger thesis than the strategic case for grafting a consumer comparison site onto a B2B2C exchange whose entire model depends on not competing with its distribution partners. Smarts.

Peace,

sb.

Key Findings

Raylo delivered its first statutory operating profit of £1.5m in FY2025, a milestone that validates the subscription rental model after seven years of development. Revenue grew 49% to £41.5m | Billing subscriptions increased 63% to 151,056 | EBITDA nearly doubled to £10.9m at 26% margin | ARR reached £48.4m with £6.9m forward momentum over statutory revenue. A £30m fundraise led by Citi, comprising £10m equity and £20m NatWest debt, valued the business at £150m post-money. The share structure was comprehensively reset in December 2025, establishing a new liquidation waterfall that promotes institutional investors above earlier backers. The original Finsur break even model predicted profitability at 133,000 subscribers; it likely arrived somewhere between 120,000 and 130,000. Close enough.

In a particularly English turn of events, I’ve noticed myself saluting ever more magpies over the last few years. To anyone less superstitious, the sight of me shuffling along the local trails witnessing a raised hand to brow without a receiving officer anywhere to be seen, is odd, possibly. But superstition aside, the reason behind my increasingly frequent martial tick is entirely related to an increase in annual mileage combined with an increase in the magpie population, which has been on a distinctly upward trend since 20161. To coin a favourite phrase, the harder I practice, the luckier I get. After Raylo’s 2025 accounts dropped last week, it appears management subscribe to a similar code of practice.

Recap

This is the third Finsur report2 on “the subscription platform for the world's leading electronics brands.”, so just a quick reminder of their model: no upfront fees, monthly subscription, device lifecycle management, circular economy ethos, founded 2018. The original model took shape as a B2C website offering electronic device rentals directly to consumers. However, since 2021, management have evolved the proposition to include RayloPay and have brought device subscription capability to other brands including Apple, PlayStation, Google, Dyson and Lenovo3. The latest OEM partnership, announced at the beginning of this month, powers LG’s premium device portfolio rentals including selected TVs, soundbars and monitors4.

Raylo is now well positioned as a “subscription infrastructure” business and confirmed the capability stack in their latest filing:

• Credit and fraud underwriting using proprietary Xylo-AI risk models

• Wholesale funding to support financing of device subscriptions

• End-to-end device lifecycle management using their proprietary Nexus platform

At the end of January this year, alongside the LG partnership, Raylo announced a £30m fundraise, with £10m in equity led by Citi and another £20m in debt from Natwest. That’s genuinely positive, but for a business able to demonstrate a clear path from device rental to subscription infrastructure, the post-money valuation of £150m5 caught me a little on the hop. So let’s have a look…

Performance

Key Performance Indicators

- Revenue: £41.5m (FY2024: £27.9m, +48.7%)

- Billing Subscriptions: 151,056 (FY2024: 92,446, +63.4%)

- ARR: £48.4m (FY2024: £30.4m, +59.1%)

- Gross Profit: £32.2m at 77% margin (FY2024: £20.6m at 74%)

- EBITDA: £10.9m at 26% margin (FY2024: £5.7m at 20%)

- Operating Profit: £1.5m (FY2024: operating loss £1.2m)

- Annual Billing per Subscriber: £267 (FY2024: £281)

- Existing Customer Net Income: £6.9m

- New Customer Acquisition Investment: £10.9m

- Subscriber Acquisition Cost: £186 (FY2024: £202)

- Net Debt: £62.2m (FY2024: £38.2m)

Management were very likely pleased with top-line performance as the business continued to deliver substantial revenue growth hitting £41.5m up 48.7% YoY (FY2024: £27.9m) which, since revenue was first disclosed for FY2021 is a 36.3% CAGR. Even better, the core subscription engine is growing faster than the top-line suggests. Management’s revenue disclosures reveal the growth quality as consumer hire agreements increased 55.1% to £40.3m (FY2024: £26.0m). Asset sale income actually fell 36.2% to £1.3m (FY2024: £2.0m). Fewer asset sales implies fewer devices reaching end-of-life disposal, which would be consistent with a faster-growing portfolio still on early subscription terms.

With third-party channel distribution enabled, FY2025 billing subscriptions increased 63.4% to 151,056 (FY2024: 92,446), that’s almost 59,000 net new subscribers in a single year and by the end of the year, annual recurring revenue (ARR) had improved to £48.4m (FY2024: £30.4m, +59.1%). The gap between ARR and statutory revenue widened to £6.9m (FY2024: £2.5m), implying second half acceleration and a strong exit run rate heading into FY2026.

As you might expect, the introduction of B2B2C channels, with a wider asset variety, has impacted the annual billing per subscriber. Although the importance of this metric declines a little without having the channel splits. Still, it’s an interesting data point which dropped £14 from £281 in FY2024 to £267 in FY2025. Additional partnerships are likely to drag this further downwards as the channel mix rebalances away from B2C sales.

Continue reading for:

• How Raylo’s first statutory operating profit was delivered whilst simultaneously investing £10.9m in new customer acquisition

• Why Citi’s entry triggered a complete share restructure and what the new liquidation waterfall means for existing investors

• At a £150m valuation, is Raylo a finance company with platform ambitions or a platform business that happens to finance devices?

Alternatively, you can download the full article as a pdf file here.

Read more

Key Findings: CL revenue +11.9% to $5,379m | NWP +20.3% to $4,165m | Adj. EBITDA +3.7% to $506m. EBITDA margins compressed 160bps over three years to 9.4%, predating Best Buy onboarding. Devices serviced declined 21% over three years; a three-month hold time extension produces an 11% combined impact on trade-in economics. Home Warranty entry via Compass targets higher margin underwriting income but the US market is structurally fragmented ($4.6bn, ~70 providers). Updated APP implied EBITDA of $251m at 11-13x suggests $2.8-3.3bn divestiture value; Assurant the obvious buyer.

The set up for the FY2025 Q4 earnings release last week1 was telegraphed the day before with the announcement that Compass International Holdings will be Assurant’s launch partner for their entry into the Home Warranty market2. Management should be happy with their earnings call performance as they guided Home Warranty to grab the biggest slice of the mentions pie with analysts asking 14 of the 24 references. They might also be pleased that the majority of analysts bumped up the stock target price without much interrogation of Connected Living’s subdued 1.4% quarterly YoY improvement or the 3.7% yearly gain coming in at $506m. Charlie Lederer at BMO Capital Markets had a bit of a go at the top line growth versus the earnings gap, but I’m not sure the response quite got to the bottom of it.

Recap

Assurant Inc. (NYSE: AIZ) is a Fortune 500 speciality insurer headquartered in Atlanta, operating across 21 countries and through two segments: Global Lifestyle and Global Housing. Much of the housing business is unique to the US with Assurant tracking home loans to determine that insurance remains in place. Global Lifestyle is a much broader business with global applicability. The reporting unit comprises Connected Living (device protection, extended service contracts, trade-in and upgrade programmes, device processing and a financial services outlier focused on credit card benefit services) and Global Automotive (extended warranties for vehicle protection and an emerging heavy vehicle line of business). Connected Living is the larger of the two business lines with $506m in Adj. EBITDA versus Automotives $296m.

Historically, Connected Living’s core business has been B2B2C device protection and extended warranties distributed through carrier, retail and OEM partnerships and according to the financial supplement to the latest earnings, they now protect 66 million devices globally. Whilst numbers at this level are hard to validate externally, that puts them as the largest protection provider alongside Asurion.

Since collaborating with T-Mobile US on the Jump! early upgrade programme in 2013, Assurant have been developing and acquiring capabilities beyond insurance to capture value across trade-in processing, device refurbishment, repair networks, logistics and device supply. The integrated lifecycle approach is central to Assurant’s competitive positioning and client stickiness with a new multi-year reverse logistics agreement announced with T-Mobile US in Q3 last year. Other key partnerships include AT&T, Comcast (Xfinity), Charter (Spectrum) and more recently Best Buy and Verizon’s Total Wireless.

FY2024 and FY2025 were characterised by management as a period of prioritised investment in new client programmes and capabilities, with FY2025 positioned as the year those investments would begin to deliver returns. Let’s have a look…

Performance

Key Performance Metrics

- CL Revenue: $5,379m (+11.9% YoY) | Q4 record $1,462m (+13%)

- CL Adj. EBITDA: $506m (+3.7%) | Q4: $121m (+1.4%)

- CL EBITDA Margin: 9.4% (FY2024: 10.1%, FY2022: 11.0%)

- Net Written Premiums: $4,165m (+20.3%) | Q4: $1,405m (+47.9%)

- Devices Protected: 66.3m (+2.9%) | Devices Serviced: 22.7m (-5.8%)

- Assurant Group Adj. EBITDA excl. cats: $1,734m | Adj. EPS excl. cats: $22.81

Connected Living’s (“CL”) revenue includes net earned premiums from the insurance business, revenue and fees from reverse logistics, trade-in processing, repairing, refurbishing and selling mobile and other electronic devices on behalf of clients. For FY2025 revenue was up 11.9% YoY at $5,379m (FY2024: $4,808m). On a constant currency basis, growth was 12.5% with FX providing some modest drag.

CL’s four-year quarterly revenue trajectory sat in a narrow band between 2022 and 2023 with limited growth and accelerated from mid-2024 breaking through $1,200m in Q3 and has climbed at a pretty decent clip until reaching the highest quarter on record in Q4 2025 at $1,462m and 13% above Q4 2024.

For contrast Allstate Protection Plans (APP) reported FY2025 revenues of $2,300m, up 16% on the previous year from $1,987m. Assurant's FY2025 10-K confirms the product mix has shifted materially. Mobile device solutions now account for 53.0% of CL revenue (FY2024: 50.6%, FY2023: 44.8%), crossing the majority threshold for the first time, whilst ESC has fallen to 34.4% (FY2024: 38.8%, FY2023: 44.7%) and financial services has risen to 12.6% (FY2024: 10.6%). At 34.4%, ESC revenues of approximately $1,851m remain broadly comparable to APP's $2,300m, but the direction of travel is notable: ESC has dropped over ten percentage points in two years. Rather than the Best Buy onboarding shifting the balance back toward ESC, the mobile device lifecycle layer is taking a larger share of CL revenue, not smaller.

CL’s net written premiums (“NWP”) jumped 20.3% to $4,165.3m for the year (FY2024: $3,461.2m). The quarterly growth acceleration was notable (Q1: +0.4%; Q2: +9%; Q3: +21%; Q4: 48%) with Q4 NWP of $1,405.2m being far the highest on record. CFO, Keith Meier confirmed the Q4 acceleration was substantially down to the Best Buy Geek Squad Protection back-book being onboarded, consisting of multi-year contracts that will earn through more gradually than they came on board.

The gap between NWP growth (FY2025: 20.3%; Q4: 47.9%) and the revenue growth (FY2025: 11.9%; Q4: 12.8%) represents the revenue locked in but not yet earned with the pipeline able to underpin management’s high single digit EBITDA growth guidance for FY2026. Contrast this with APP’s NWP growth at 7% versus 16% earned premium growth demonstrating the opposite dynamic, implying that APP is earning through the prior year premiums rather than building forward momentum. They’ll be fighting hard for new business over the coming year.

Whilst I can’t imagine it’s the most accurate metric, Assurant’s Devices Protected provides a valuable sense of scale. Global covered devices stood at 61.9m in Q4 2022 and declined slightly to 61.3m devices by the end of 2023. Mirroring the revenue trajectory, 3.1m devices were added in FY2024 and another 1.9m devices added in FY2025 taking the total to 66.3m.

Devices Serviced is another interesting metric. According to the financial supplement, it’s defined as the number of devices for which Assurant provides value through trade-ins and upgrade, technology, claims fulfilment, repair capabilities, logistics and asset disposition. It captures every device touched across the mobile lifecycle, not solely consumer trade-ins. In FY2022, Devices Serviced hit 28.6m and has declined 21% over the intervening three years to 22.7m in FY2025. Q4 remains the seasonal peak driven by the annual iPhone launch cycle with the seasonal pattern holding even as the annual trend declines: Q4 2025 6.7m devices; Q4 2024 6.5m; Q4 2023 7.5m and; Q4 2022 7.5m. That might be worth pausing on.

Apple reported a record quarter on the back of iPhone 17 sales and both Verizon and AT&T reported strong equipment sales supporting the claim. TMUS, Assurant’s largest carrier client and with whom they have signed a multi-year logistics agreement in 2025, reported Q4 equipment revenue of $5.4bn, up 14% YoY, with postpaid device upgrade rate rising from 3.6% to 3.8%. Given the breadth of Assurant’s metric, I would have thought a record sales / upgrade cycle should see devices flowing through multiple channels. Instead Devices Serviced barely moved. Either the dollar value is translating but not the volume, some of the upgrade activity is flowing through channels Assurant does not touch, or the longer device hold times are dampening response even during peak upgrade cycles.

The value story supports the first interpretation. Assurant’s own quarterly market reports show the dollar value returned to customers through trade-ins growing 40-60% YoY through 2025, with average device age at trade-in reaching an all-time high of 3.88 years in Q2 2025. Fewer devices processed at higher per unit values, consistent with consumers holding onto handsets longer but trading in more valuable devices when they do upgrade.

A quick check of the quarterly Devices Serviced metric, to determine if there was some additional lag as devices passed along the chain, revealed an increasing concentration around the iPhone launch cycle. In FY2022, devices serviced ranged from 6.8m to 7.5m across quarters. By FY2025 the range had widened to 4.8m to 6.7m, with Q3 2025 the lowest single quarter on record. As total volumes shrink, the business is becoming more dependent on a single annual event to drive throughput. Unsurprising given Apple’s market dominance perhaps, but notable.

Continue reading for:

• Why EBITDA margins have compressed 160bps over three years and what the 10-K cost of sales data reveals about the trajectory

• A scenario model quantifying the sensitivity of Assurant’s trade-in pipeline to consumer hold time extensions, and why the AI upgrade narrative doesn’t hold up

• Assurant’s Home Warranty entry, the margin recovery thesis and what the competitive landscape actually looks like versus mobile

• An updated valuation of a potential inorganic target and the competitive dynamics that may be shortening the window

The full report is also available as a PDF for download here.

Read more

Key Findings: One of three Apple Trade In vendors across nine European markets, plus Google's Pixel partner. Excelsior revenue doubled to €172m; combined European gross billings approached €300m equivalent, though intercompany flows obscure actual throughput. Transfer pricing architecture delivers controlled entity returns; combined European profit floor of €6.5m to €7.0m with the real contribution to PCS Wireless LLC invisible. Obsolescence provision at 35.8% of gross inventory is a structural outlier; every comparable is below 14%. UK Ltd capitalisation of £93k supporting £63.3m revenue (680x) defines asset light. Estimated European device intake: 1.0m to 1.5m units annually.

Apple’s legal pages can be very insightful, especially living in a jurisdiction that values transparency and consumer disclosure. Note the difference between the Apple legal trade-in page for e.g. Germany listing Alchemy, Likewize and PCS Wireless (because the Consumer Rights Directive requires consumers to be informed of the identity of any trader they are contracting with, not especially controversial), versus e.g. Canada which simply states that a third-party vendor exists. That list of three third-party vendors reminded me that I’ve yet to cover PCS Wireless and, given their importance in the secondary market, I was happy to start rectifying that oversight, and then I sat down with the accounts.

Recap

PCS Wireless LLC was founded in 2001 by Ben Nash and Praveen Arora, operating from New Jersey and Miami Lakes, FL. The company operates in the wholesale distribution, recovery, refurbishment and redistribution of pre-owned devices across 80+ countries. And, given my desire to dig through financial reports, to my mild and temporary annoyance, it remains privately held with no consolidated accounts in the public domain. Although that’s a decent caveat for any errors on my part. Every cloud.

PCS Wireless's European presence dates to 2013, when PCS Wireless NL Coöperatief U.A. (KvK 57921180) and PCS Wireless Espana 2013 S.L. were established as the group's continental wholesale trading vehicles, generating consolidated revenue of €159.4m by FY2022. UK operations followed with the incorporation of PCS Wireless UK Limited (12329873) in 2019 and PCS Wireless UK Mobile Limited (13518201) in 2021, both under the inimitable Fergal Donovan (now Cyculus) as regional president until 2023. The OEM trade-in business routes through PCS Excelsior Wireless Coöperatief U.A. (KvK 77551788), established in the Netherlands in March 2020 and co-directed by Donovan alongside Bashar Nejdawi (ex Brightpoint, Ingram and Clover), who also served as group COO and Chief Strategy Officer. Dutch commercial leadership passed to the also inimitable Pieter Waasdorp between 2022 and 2023. Lazer Herson’s 14 year tenure, latterly as CEO, preceded Ben Nash returning to pick up the position at the beginning of this year.

The distinction between the vendor T&C’s listed on the Apple legals is that, so far as PCS Wireless (PCS) is concerned, Apple provides the customer service for the trade-in programme including: the determination of whether the device is eligible for trade-in, taking possession of the device and inspecting the device, which implies that PCS is responsible for the Apple in-store trade-ins. The Alchemy and Likewize T&C’s are both structured around the consumer shipping the device to the vendor directly, which implies the online/mail-in model. Following the legal trail left by the Apple URLs would further suggest that PCS are responsible for the in-store programme in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, The Netherlands, Australia, Vietnam and Saudi Arabia. This article is focused on PCS performance in the UK and EU markets.

The European corporate structure has evolved considerably since PCS first established its presence. PCS Wireless NL Coöperatief U.A. (KvK 57921180) was originally the European sub-group holding company, filing consolidated accounts that included PCS Wireless Espana and AMLAT PCS Wireless Dominican Republic underneath it. During FY2023, both the Spanish and Latin American entities were transferred to PCS Wireless LLC in New Jersey, along with the 51% stake in Dignitas Distribution B.V. and the dormant Latam Cellular Holdings LLC. By the end of that process, PCS Wireless NL Coöperatief U.A. had been stripped back to a treasury and cash pooling function, with its consolidated revenue falling from €159.4m in FY2022 to €113.5m in FY2023 as the transferred entities dropped out mid year. PCS Wireless Ireland Limited, which had previously traded in mobile and computer technology, went inactive in 2023. The operational centre of gravity has appeared to shift to PCS Excelsior Wireless Coöperatief U.A. (KvK 77551788) as the primary European trading vehicle, supported by PCS Services NL Coöperatief U.A. running the Rosmalen processing hub acquired from New ComServe Group in 2022. Today, all European entities sit as direct subsidiaries of PCS Wireless LLC rather than underneath each other; the group runs flat, not hierarchical, which should make for easy reading, shouldn’t it?

Key Performance Indicators

Excelsior (77551788) FY2024: Revenue: €172.0m (FY2023: €84.1m, +104%) Gross margin: 5.0% | Net profit: €3.85m Net inventory: €6.13m (gross €9.54m less €3.42m provision) Receivables: €64.3m (€63.25m intercompany) Operating cash flow: -€19.99m

UK Ltd (12329873) FY2024: Revenue: £63.3m (FY2023: £28.3m, +124%) Gross margin: 1.3% | Net profit: £1.42m Stocks: £12.71m (FY2023: £5.57m, +128%) Employees: 37 | Net assets: £93k

Mobile UK (13518201) FY2024: Revenue: £57.7m (FY2023: £22.3m, +159%) Gross margin: 0.4% | Net profit: £1.60m Employees: 0 | Net assets: £2.43m

Source: Filed accounts for periods ending 31 December 2024

Performance

Headlines

PCS Excelsior Wireless Coöperatief U.A. (“Excelsior”) posted revenues of €172.0m in FY2024, a 104% increase on the prior year (FY2023: €84.1m). The size of the business in FY2022 meant full accounts did not need to be filed, but a 452.65% net sales growth disclosed in the FY2023 filing, implies the FY2022 revenue was approximately €15m. That’s a significant three-year trajectory.

The UK operations run through two entities that serve distinct acquisition channels. PCS Wireless UK Limited (“UK Ltd”) wrote £63.3m in FY2024 and is the contracting party for Apple and Google Trade-In, acquiring devices directly from UK consumers under the OEM programmes. PCS Wireless Mobile UK Ltd (“Mobile UK Ltd”) appears to source devices from external trade suppliers, with its creditor profile implying purchases predominantly from non-group counterparties. FY2024 revenue for the Mobile UK Ltd was £57.7m and entirely from internal sales into the wider PCS group.

Altogether, the three European trading entities generated gross billings approaching the equivalent of €300m in FY2024. However, substantial intercompany flows mean that the actual revenue is likely to be much smaller and all the above entities are direct subsidiaries of PCS Wireless LLC, which doesn’t have to file. Grrrrr.

Intercompany Architecture

The filed accounts reveal a multi-entity structure where each node serves a specific transfer pricing function rather than representing an independent business. UK Ltd is explicitly described as a limited risk entity: “The Company risk is limited, and PCS Wireless Group bears the risk through the transfer pricing policy.” Its debtor profile (£19.5m owned by group undertakings, versus £1.4m in trade debtors) confirms the revenue must be mostly intercompany. A £3.95m “Management Fee Income” is exactly offset by a £3.95m “Transfer Pricing Adjustment” disclosed as an exceptional item, leaving UK Ltd with a controlled operating profit. The fee compensates for the operational work at their Bracknell facility.

UK Ltd’s entire £57.7m is classified as “Intercompany Sales” in accounting note 3, with all revenue arising in the United Kingdom. The £18.5m in trade creditors versus just £113k owed to group undertakings implies that it buys from external suppliers and sells back into the group. It has zero employees, two directors and a token 0.4% gross margin with profit driven by £1.9m from other operating income. This is a paper entity sitting between external device sourcing and the group’s continental processing infrastructure.

Excelsior carries a €63.3m receivable from PCS Wireless NL Coöperatief U.A., comprising €34.2m in trade debtors, a €21.1m current account, and €8.0m in invoices and credit notes. Cross-referencing against FY2023 accounts, which showed a €20.9m trade creditor owed to Excelsior subsequently confirming the direction: Excelsior sells to the PCS Wireless NL Coöperatief entity, not the other way around. The relationship has scaled dramatically (from €24.2m to €63.3m year on year). This implies that a significant portion of Excelsior's €172m revenue likely represents intercompany sales, which in turn distributes to external wholesale customers across Netherlands, EU, and non-EU markets.

The connection between the UK entities and Excelsior is less visible. Both UK entities take advantage of the FRS 102 s33.1A exemption, declining to disclose related party transaction detail. Excelsior's only disclosed relationship with a UK entity is an immaterial €136,632 current account with Mobile UK Ltd (settled in early 2025). UK Ltd's £21.6m "Rest of World" revenue is the most likely route for devices flowing from the UK acquisition channel to continental distribution, but the specific counterparty cannot be confirmed from the filed accounts alone.

Indicative Volumes

Volume estimation requires selecting which entity’s revenue best reflects actual device throughput. Excelsior’s €172m is probably the most useful proxy despite the intercompany element, because the devices flowing through it are real regardless of whether the next buyer is internal or an external customer. At an estimated B2B wholesale ASP of €175 to €200, reflecting a mixed grade and brand portfolio sold at a significant discount to consumer refurbished pricing, Excelsior’s revenue implies throughput of 860,000 to 980,000 devices annually.

The UK acquisition channels add further volume, although the degree of overlap with Excelsior’s figures means that a simple addition would probably overstate the position. UK Ltd’s £63.3m and Mobile UK’s £57.7m include substantial intercompany flows between each other and with continental entities. A conservative estimate for total European device intake, accounting for the two distinct UK acquisition funnels plus continental sourcing, would be in the range of 1.0m to 1.5m devices annually. At this scale, PCS sits among the largest European trade-in processors. Both UK strategic reports cite the same factor: "the growth of trade-in schemes." The revenue trajectory of the main trade-in entities maps to the rollout and deepening of these programmes across European markets.

Coöperatief Caveat

PCS Wireless NL Coöperatief U.A., the group's original European wholesale vehicle, has yet to file FY2024 accounts. Based on FY2023 trading patterns (€26.7m Netherlands revenue, €24.1m outside the EU as a standalone entity) and the dramatically expanded intercompany relationship with Excelsior, its FY2024 filing will be important for two reasons. First, it likely contains the external wholesale revenue that represents the true market-facing output of the European operation. Second, the scale of intercompany purchases from Excelsior (implied by the €63.3m receivable) will allow a more precise estimate of how much of Excelsior's €172m represents genuine external sales versus internal transfers. Until that filing appears, probably late 2026 based on prior patterns, the full European revenue picture remains incomplete. Easy reading? Not especially.

Continue reading for:

• Transfer pricing mechanics, controlled margins and a combined European profitability floor of €6.5m to €7.0m

• The obsolescence question: why 35.8% is a structural outlier and who bears residual value risk in the OEM trade-in chain

• Strategic implications including capitalisation benchmarks, repair capability and the TessaB connection to Digital Product Passports

Alternatively, please click here for the article as PDF file.

Read more

Key Findings: Apple Certified Refurbished is closer to marketplace pricing than expected, particularly in the UK where it undercuts Back Market Premium on some Pro configurations. Samsung's Certified Renewed launched across four markets but a new S25 from a UK retailer is cheaper than Samsung's own refurbished price. OEM entry into certified refurbished creates direct channel conflict for marketplace operators competing for the 63% of buyers who prefer pristine condition.

Researching the ever changing nature of inventory on the multiple Apple store sites, Back Market sites across Europe and the US and, willing there to be some change in the newly launched Samsung Certified Renewed sites (there wasn’t), felt like a thankless task. Models would appear then disappear, then reappear with a different price, or in Samsung’s case never appear at all until the last gasp. Whilst that might be the nature of fast moving inventory, it all reminded me of that classic Blade Runner line from Rutger Hauer’s replicant: All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Truly. No dying here though. Well, at least not before this article hits you in the Substack.

Given the market indicators appear to be validating my general and connected narratives of extending lifecycles, resulting in flat to declining new device sales leading to greater OEM participation in the secondary market1 and ultimately market consolidation amongst the supply chain, it felt like an appropriate time to lay down a baseline on the state of OEM certified device pricing. I’ve stuck to phones, but, if there’s any interest, I’m open to widening the coverage to the tablets and the laptops that sit in the same certified OEM programmes. The data was collected between 02/02/2026 and 03/02/2026. Let’s get to it…

A Variable Pricing Gap

Until I started looking for a refurb device before Christmas2, I’d assumed that an OEM certified refurbished option would be way ahead in the price charts. I’d assumed a premium associated with the brand for which I would be unable to justify the product features over and above that of a high-quality grade from a marketplace. My assumption began to look misplaced when I spotted a listing on a UK marketplace for a “pristine” iPhone 15 128GB which was 11% more expensive than Apple’s own certified refurbished option.

On the face of it, and certainly for the general consumer, grading and pricing across the market have become incoherent at best and chaotic at worst. In the sample for this article, an Apple Certified iPhone 15 Pro 256GB is £759 vs a Back Market premium (“BM-P”) grade device at £819. Apple is £60 cheaper. However, at 512GB, for the iPhone 15 Pro, the BM-P grade device is £92 cheaper at £837 than Apple’s £929, and for the 512GB Pro Max model, the BM-P price is £147 cheaper than Apple. At the 1TB mark, it all gets a bit messy. The iPhone 15 Pro will set you back £1,099 at Apple, £100 more than the only available BM-P device. And finally, the 1TB version of the Pro Max is £1,189 at Apple which will set you back £968 for a BM-P Blue Titanium or a full £1,500 for the White Titanium version. Probably easier to follow all of that in the table below and note the BM-P pricing excludes their QA fee.

But whilst the pricing gap in the UK was far narrower than I first thought, it’s not the same elsewhere.

What the Premium Buys You

The average difference between Apple’s Certified Refurbished offer and Back Market’s premium offer is just under £40 across the sample range. Admittedly, that’s a bit simplistic, but the narrower the gap, the more likely the customer is to investigate the proposition differences. What are customers actually paying for?

Apple’s Certified specification includes a new battery, a new outer shell, genuine parts and a 1-year Apple warranty all wrapped up in some retail-style packaging. Compare that to the Back Market Premium spec that offers a minimum 90% battery guarantee, flawless cosmetics, Apple parts, a 12-month seller warranty (24-months in Spain & Portugal) and a 30-day cooling off period.

The battery maths alone might prompt the consumer to seriously consider a certified option. An Apple battery replacement is £99 out of warranty. The trade-off is whether a refurbished or secondhand device at minimum 80% or in BM-P’s case 90%, might need replacing within the ownership period. As lifecycles extend, that might be necessary. In BM-P’s case, if the battery drops below 90% within the first 30 days, the buyer is entitled to a repair. After that first month and for the remaining 11 months, the threshold drops to 80%. So the 90% commitment is effectively a 30-day guarantee, but from month two onwards, the buyer's protection is the same 80% floor that applies to every other grade on the platform. Of course, battery degradation is a highly personal function and the warranty protection on it is not as straightforward as the headline figure implies. The point is that £99 closes or eliminates any price advantage BM-P holds at most storage tiers.

Back Market's own help centre confirms that its grading system refers to cosmetic appearance. Every device is guaranteed 100% functional regardless of grade. Premium adds genuine manufacturer parts and a higher battery floor, but the system itself is cosmetic first. Apple Certified removes this ambiguity entirely; the battery is new, the shell is new, the parts are genuine, and none of that requires interpretation. With BM-P, two sellers listing the same device at Premium grade meet the same appearance standard, but the buyer has no visibility into which seller fulfilled their order or what internal condition choices that seller made. Readers of the Caveat Emptor article will recall the £99 spread on "Excellent" condition devices across the market. Premium is a tighter specification than Excellent, but the principle holds: marketplace grading remains an imperfect proxy for product equivalence.

The warranty structure is where the comparison becomes most consequential. With Apple Certified, the manufacturer is also the refurbisher, the warranty provider, and the customer service handler. One counterparty, one balance sheet, no intermediation. With BM-P, the buyer's experience feels like dealing with a single entity because Back Market handles all customer facing interactions. But the warranty obligation sits with the third party refurbisher who prepared the device. Back Market operates an enforcement mechanism that steps in if the seller fails to perform, and by most accounts it works well, but the structural difference remains. This is intermediated warranty, not direct warranty. The buyer's recourse depends on Back Market's continued ability and willingness to enforce against the seller. With Apple, the question of enforcement simply doesn't arise.

None of this is to suggest that BM-P is a poor customer proposition. It is not. They got my business before Christmas. For many buyers, the price saving will be worth the trade offs, particularly at higher storage tiers where the gap widens. But the nominal price difference between Apple Certified and BM-P dismisses the additional value (perceived or otherwise) offered by the manufacturer. The battery gap, the warranty structure, and the grading system may erode the headline saving as consumers consider the whole offer and, at some storage tiers, Apple Certified is arguably cheaper on a like for like basis.

But this comparison only works where both options are actually available.

Continue reading for:

• How Apple’s certified inventory differs dramatically across the UK, Europe and the US, and what that reveals about trade-in flows and supply constraints.

• Samsung’s Certified Renewed pricing across four markets, how it compares to Back Market and why the refurbished option can cost more than new.

• What OEM entry into certified refurbished means for marketplace operators, investors and the wider circular economy supply chain.

Read more

With that, here’s a round up of the interesting items that caught my attention as we began 2026…

Market

The European Commission launched a public consultation on the revision of the New Legislative Framework (NLF), the 2008 infrastructure underpinning CE marking, conformity assessment and market surveillance across around 30 EU legal acts1. The consultation runs until 4 February 2026, with draft legislation currently flagged for Q3 2026 as part of a proposed European Product Act. For the secondary market, the revision is significant because the NLF was built for products being “placed on the market” once; it doesn’t natively accommodate circular scenarios where devices re‑enter commerce after repair or refurbishment. The Commission explicitly acknowledges this gap, noting that compliance may need to be assessed “dynamically, for example after recycling or repair”, and refurbishers and circular‑economy businesses are explicitly named as stakeholders in the process. The revision is also expected to be the main vehicle for rolling out Digital Product Passports as the default channel for product information and documentation across CE‑marked goods. Whether this ultimately delivers the regulatory simplification that industry groups like DigitalEurope are lobbying for, or simply adds another compliance layer on top of the existing maze, remains to be seen. I’ll dig deeper into that in a follow‑up regulatory piece building on last July’s Circular Economy Act article2.

If you see a market research report on mobile phone insurance suggesting the largest competitor globally is writing about $9bn and has 3% of the market and Telefonica Insurance writing about $180m has 1%3, with an 11.5% CAGR expectation to a total market of $60.51bn by 2030, I’d recommend ignoring it and consider a paid subscription to this substack instead because I won’t charge you $4,490 for a load of shite. Right, off the soapbox.

Far more credibly, Counterpoint’s final view of 20254 sell-in clearly showed Apple as the winner in the growth stakes putting on 10% to take a 20% market share overall. Samsung also appeared to benefit from the flight to premium devices putting on 5% over the year to end up with a 19% market share. Xiaomi, Vivo and Oppo remained flat in the top five, outside of which Nothing and Google performed well with 31% and 25% YoY growth respectively. However the general view is that primary market growth continues to decelerate. Counterpoint, IDC and Omdia all forecast flat-to-negative new shipments in 2026, with memory-cost pressures (CCS Insight’s Ben Wood’s “Ramageddon” sums it up nicely) weighing on ASPs and consumer demand. By contrast, the organised secondary market is emerging as the growth engine, with CCS Insight forecasting +6% growth in 2025 rebounding to sustained 5–7% expansion through 2028. Counterpoint's H1 data showed refurbished units at only +3% YoY, but expects recovery as trade-in programs scale. The secondary market is now estimated at $32B (2024) growing to $46B (2028), representing roughly 25% of new device sales in 2025 and growing market share. Here’s a summary:

Pieter Waasdorp’s Secondarymarket.news article on issues with agentic AI grabbed my attention pretty quickly5. I traced it back to an article published on Modern Retail at the beginning of the month reporting on the experience of Californian stationery seller Angie Chua6. Despite not selling on Amazon since 2016, she discovered her product catalogue had become available for sale on Amazon’s marketplace and she’d had a bunch of orders from “@buyforme.amazon”. Whilst Buy For Me remains a US-only pilot for now, it raises questions that European operators should be monitoring, particularly given the stricter regulatory environment around data protection and consumer rights that would apply if this model crossed the Atlantic. More broadly, it previews a shift in how platform commerce might evolve. If agentic intermediation becomes the norm, European refurbishers and platform sellers might be wondering if their current channel strategies are defensible. I’d start with:

• Who controls how refurbished listings and data are used by AI agents, and can they re‑list or route orders without explicit consent?

• When an AI agent mis‑specifies a refurbished device or creates fulfilment/returns issues, where does legal and financial responsibility sit? With the marketplace, the agent provider, or the seller?

• As EU rules on platforms, product compliance and fairness evolve, will agentic commerce structurally disadvantage compliant European refurb merchants, or can it be shaped to protect their data, margins and visibility?

Peter C. Evans, writing on Platform Professional7, offers an optimistic take: AI agents will systematically favour platforms with structured, verifiable data, potentially rewarding early Digital Product Passport adopters and accelerating grading standardisation. If he's right, European refurbishers who've invested in compliance could find themselves at an advantage. Yet the FT's coverage of the current US landscape suggests we're some distance from that tidy outcome8. Amazon is suing Perplexity, blocking third-party agents, and watching its share of AI referrals collapse while Walmart hoovers up the traffic. Retail media revenues face erosion, fraud risks are multiplying, and nobody has resolved the basic question of liability when an agent gets it wrong. The commercial reality, for now, is messy. European operators would be wise to watch closely, but not to assume the American model will simply replicate itself within a regulatory environment that takes consumer protection and data rights rather more seriously.

Companies

Apple reported its fiscal Q1 2026 last week, with iPhone revenue up 23% to $85.3bn on the back of the iPhone 17 launch9. Tim Cook described demand as "simply staggering" and claimed all-time records across every geographic segment. China alone, however, appeared to carry the hardware revival with revenue surging 38% to $25.5bn, reversing the softness evident in the annual 10-K filed just months earlier. In the US, Verizon's Q4 results lend some credibility to Cook's claims; equipment revenue rose 9.1% and the consumer postpaid upgrade rate jumped from 4.5% to 5.0%, suggesting genuine sell-through10. AT&T posted similarly strong equipment revenue gains, up 12.7% to $7.4bn, reinforcing the picture of robust US sell-through11. Europe is harder to read. The region's 12.7% growth sits below the group average and could theoretically be driven almost entirely by Services rather than hardware. I'll have to wait until the likes of DT, VMO2 and Telefonica report their Q4 handset revenues to determine whether the sell-in records translated to European sell-out.

In the CCS Predictions 60 article, last December, I covered the European retention problem with hibernating phones. I’d concluded that keeping old phones for back-up in a drawer was based on fears that rarely materialise and customers might need reminding as much. So, it was great to see Cashify’s CMO aligned with the cause in India and expanding on the idea with a link to e-waste. Love it.

ecoATM reported good progress throughout the year. It’s almost impossible to get any financial information from non-listed entities in the US, so I have to make do with whatever gets self-reported. That said, management would have to be pretty happy with the collection of almost 7.5m devices over the course of the year and by hitting 7,000 kiosk installations via 21 new retail partners with over 1,100 kiosks installed in the existing retail network. Add in the Canadian expansion via marquee client Walmart, and you’d be ok with feeling a bit smug. Although I’d be feeling smugger if I could corroborate that with some financial data. According to Tracxn, ecoATM’s last raise of $50m in March 2023 was part of their $325m Series D round bringing total equity funding to just under $400m since inception. If new CEO Matt Furlong’s credentials are anything to go by, 2026 growth should shape up to be a decent curve.

EE’s device and insurance teams have had a busy few months by the looks of things. The insurance team, alongside long-term partner Chubb, announced Multi Tech Cover including loss, theft, accidental damage and extended warranty, worldwide cover backed by manufacturer approved repairs for an “unlimited” number of eligible devices12. The new offer sits alongside their existing Single Tech Cover product options which include AppleCare Services and are available during the checkout process. Multi Tech Cover starts from £15.99 a month for accidental damage policies and from £22.99 a month for full cover, including loss and theft. The cover extends to the household covering up to 20, so not unlimited then, devices belonging to spouses, partners, kids and permanently residing relatives, and despite some claims limits, breakdown claims are unlimited, possibly. Claims are settled by repair or replacement with similar spec and may be refurbished. The only comparison that quickly comes to mind is Barclays Tech Pack by Likewize.

Just about a week later, EE’s device team got in on the launch act with its refurbished range including airtime and targeting “Gen-Z Tech-Thrifters” who, according to the news release, view owning pre-owned as a badge of honour13. The range now includes New devices, Good As New devices (from EE’s 14-day returns stock) and "Refurbished Apple and Samsung devices subject to a 53-point inspection covering all the usual. A refurbished iPhone 14 in very good condition with a minimum 80% battery will set those badge-wearing GenZeders back £18.43 per month on top of £25 for a 25GB data plan14. Besides the fact that EE quote the outdated ADEME research on device carbon savings15, this is a positive initiative. Good stuff.

More news on device protection partnerships as bolttech announced a new partnership with Sony in Hong Kong16. My Sony Care+ launched in mid-December covering cameras and lenses and is expected to expand across the Xperia smartphone lines, TV’s portable music players and headphones during 2026. The development builds on Sony’s existing extended warranty offer by adding complimentary accidental and liquid damage covering repair costs up to the RRP or a one-time beyond economic repair replacement. The partnership also deepens the strategic investment relationship with Tokio Marine who provide backing for the programme. Worse news for bolttech at the beginning of the year though with the news they’d been a victim of a ransomware attack17. Ouch.

Samsung launched a broadside into the European refurbished market with the news their Certified Renewed Programme will be expanding into the UK, Germany and France18. The announcement was followed up by an excellent event at their FX store in London’s Kings Cross in collaboration with CCS Insight. I’m assuming the programme is going to take some time to scale given there’s still only one model available on their site19, but what really got me digging was a reference to the currently unavailable New Galaxy Club as a core part of their secondary market strategy. Click here for the lowdown.

Whilst researching the latest MTR Group accounts filing, I noted that Samsung had altered their trade-in UX. Previously when trading in a device, you’d get a link to a branded MTR sub-site to continue your trade-in journey. That’s all changed and the consumer no longer leaves the Samsung site to trade-in their device. For the user, it’s a significant improvement on the previous process. For Samsung, I am assuming it gives them better visibility over the trade-in price and therefore MTR’s acquisition cost on a device level basis. I’m not sure who was first to the change, but the Apple UX is now practically the same, remaining on-site rather than linking out to the Likewize Apple trade-in portal.

Recommerce Group and LiftForward have announced an exclusive European partnership combining LiftForward’s device financing and subscription platform with Recommerce’s refurbishment and buyback operations. Under the deal, Recommerce becomes LiftForward’s sole buyback partner for all European transactions and the exclusive distributor of LiftForward’s platform across the region. The alliance positions both companies to offer Forward Trade-In and upgrade programmes to retailers, carriers and OEMs. According to the release, LiftForward brings its established OEM relationships (notably Microsoft) and lender integrations (including BNP Paribas Personal Finance), while Recommerce contributes its 1.2 million device annual throughput and existing portfolio of 10+ European FTI programmes. The partnership essentially creates a single stack covering the financing front-end, trade-in orchestration and device disposition, reducing integration complexity for channel partners looking to deploy upgrade schemes and I’m fairly certain that BNP will have had their IFRS 15 Appendix B paragraphs 64 to 76 pretty well nailed for some time alongside the balance sheet to support them.

After a four-month trial, MusicMagpie have pushed beyond the direct and kiosk channels by rolling out in-store smartphone trade-ins across more than 1,300 Timpson locations20. The service offers instant assessment and payment within minutes and directly addresses what AO CEO John Roberts calls "apathy" as the biggest barrier to device trade-in. The reality may be more complex. Research into European device retention suggests behavioural barriers run deeper: 47% of consumers keep old phones as backup devices, performing "some type of functional utility calculation that guaranteed connectivity is worth more than the value of a trade-in offer." Censuswide research cited in the announcement suggests that 68% of consumers prefer to trade in devices in person and a quarter cite immediate payment as very important. The Timpson partnership certainly addresses the friction and value perception barriers, but whether instant cash can overcome backup anxiety remains to be seen. I hope so, whilst many of the drawer phones may have limited value, making trade-in habitual is going to need more initiatives like this.

I’d reported on the potential redundancies at Exertis last month after significant local and national coverage. The latest news is that approximately 400 Exertis UK employees now face involuntary redundancy after the consultation process in addition to those opting for the voluntary redundancy programme21. Not especially good news at Exertis Supplies either. VOW Wholesale, owned by EVO, is in advanced negotiations to acquire Exertis Supplies but is proposing to take only the stock and customer list, closing the Elland site entirely. Of 186 staff, just 28 would transfer to VOW's Normanton headquarters, all in sales or commercial roles. An employee rep acknowledged the potential loss of 158 jobs was "not the outcome we wanted." The TUPE transfer is scheduled to complete on 9 February22.

Investments

Assurant has acquired RL Circular Operations, the reverse logistics division of Australia's TIC Group, to strengthen its operational capabilities across Australia and New Zealand23. TIC Group, founded in 1989, operates centralised return centres and asset recovery programmes with offices in Melbourne, Auckland, Mumbai and Gurgaon. The deal reduces Assurant's reliance on third-party logistics providers in "priority APAC markets". Financial terms were not disclosed.

After the £16.5bn deal to merge Three UK with Vodafone closed last year, Hutchison continues looking for opportunities to offload its European telecom assets. Three Ireland appears to be next on the list with Liberty Global on the other side of the table in a deal reported to be worth around €1.5bn24. For Liberty Global, the acquisition would give Virgin Media Ireland its own mobile network infrastructure rather than relying on its current MVNO arrangement with Three. Hutchison is reportedly also examining disposals in Sweden and Denmark, while Reuters suggests Wind Tre has explored a potential tie-up with Iliad's Italian business. The broader picture is one of continued European MNO consolidation, with Hutchison systematically reducing its operator footprint to minority stakes and outright exits while cableco-telco convergence deals reshape national markets.

A raft of filings at Companies House preceded the news that Raylo have secured a £30m funding round comprising of £10m in equity led by Citibank alongside a further £20m in debt from existing investor NatWest25. Notably, the £10m equity arrives via a new 'Senior Shares' class ranking ahead of existing Series A and Seed+ investors in the capital structure. The funds will be applied to support continued UK growth as well as market development beginning with the US later this year. That’s not the easiest first market to tackle but perhaps the new partnership with LG, announced at the same time, will provide a lead client? The funding follows a strong FY2024 where Raylo achieved EBITDA positive status at £5.6m, a £7.5m turnaround, whilst growing billing subscriptions 59% to 92,446. However, net debt of £38.2m against just £2.3m cash at year end underlined the capital intensity of the rental model. Full analysis in my Raylo FY2024 report.

News that Foxway have acquired Romanian tech specialist ABD prompted me to look again at their covenant constraints26. ABD (All Birotic Devices Trade & Service S.R.L.) is a Bucharest-based refurbishment operation with around 50 employees, specialising in restoring devices to premium standards through respraying and skinning, essentially cosmetic restoration that allows refurbished units to command higher resale prices. The company already provides services to Foxway linked to the Teqcycle premium brand, so this is vertical integration of an existing supplier rather than market expansion. ABD reported revenue of approximately EUR 6.3m (SEK 69m) in 2024 with an 11% EBITDA margin. In previous commentary I’ve been using the full IFRS Net Debt (SEK 3,216.9m / EUR 292m at Q2 2025) and not excluding sale and leaseback liabilities, the financing structure that underpins Foxway’s DaaS growth. I apologise. The covenant-relevant figure is closer to their reported Alternative Net Debt: SEK 2,173.1m (EUR 198m) at Q3 2025. Against LTM Adjusted EBITDA of SEK 658.7m (EUR 60m), this produces a covenant leverage ratio of approximately 3.30x, well beneath the 4.50x threshold and requiring no equity contribution for debt-funded acquisitions. ABD fits easily within Foxway’s covenant capacity and even assuming full debt funding at a generous 7x EBITDA multiple, post-acquisition leverage would remain around 3.34x. The seller reinvestment element appears to reflect alignment incentives and cash conservation rather than covenant necessity. However, the structural constraint I identified would still apply to larger M&A transactions. With roughly SEK 790m (EUR 72m) of debt headroom before reaching the 4.50x threshold, Foxway can pursue bolt-on acquisitions in the EUR 5-25m range without constraint. Beyond EUR 75m, the economics tighten considerably, and anything approaching EUR 100m+ would trigger the 40% equity contribution requirement. Foxway’s FY2025 year end report is due on 26th February. I’ll cover that in full shortly thereafter.

Right, that’s about enough from me and remember, if you ever feel like your WEEE problems are getting too much, they’ll never be as bad as the poor person that came across this…

Peace,

sb.

7

Platform Professional

A Mother, an AI Agent, and the Future of Buying Used Phones

Imagine it’s November 2027, two years from now. Amanda, a working mother of two teenagers, finally gives in to her youngest daughter Jocelyn’s pleas for a smartphone for school and friends. But Amanda wants to avoid the expense of a new phone and the hassle of comparing listings on Amazon and eBay, with their varying condition grades, prices, and warran…

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7 months ago · 6 likes · Peter C. Evans

Key Findings: Samsung's New Galaxy Club, launched in the UK in May 2025, offered customers a 50% residual value guarantee on Galaxy S25 and foldable devices. The programme was marked "currently unavailable" by October 2025 after approximately five months. Under IFRS 15, the guarantee triggers lease accounting rather than sale recognition, creating immediate balance sheet liabilities. With S-series devices retaining approximately 42% of value at 12 months and foldables around 25%, the gap between guarantee and market creates structural margin pressure. Analysis suggests the programme's pause was driven by accounting constraints rather than market failure.

Attending the CCS Insight Samsung event last week validated me banging on about the fact that device manufacturers would have to make bigger moves into the secondary market. Back in 2024 I was trying to figure out the new vs refurbished balance point1 and what OEM responses would be to secondary market growth which had for the most part, been left to, well, the secondary market2. By November last year it was clear to anyone rummaging through my CCS Insight Predictions series that manufacturers will need to spin up their circular flywheels quick sharpish and customer lifetime value might replace new device sales on management dashboards from Chertsey to Suwon.

For the avoidance of doubt, Samsung’s widely reported New Galaxy Club with its 50% residual value guarantee (RVG) pretty much telegraphed their intent in May last year3. But just as swiftly it disappeared under a “currently unavailable” label sometime around October 2025 and has remained so ever since4. It came to mind again at Samsung's broadside into the secondary market from my front row seat at their XP store in London's Kings Cross. If anyone can offer a forward residual, surely the OEMs have an advantage? Although, being reminded of a comment from an industry vet and subscriber a while back, as is oft the case, my curiosity got the better of me and down the rabbit hole I went. Coming?

New Galaxy Club

Launched in May 2025, the New Galaxy Club was initially open to the S25 series and extended in July 2025 to include the Flip7 and Fold7 devices. Consumers could join the club on Samsung’s UK website, Student & Youth Store and via the Enhanced Partnership Programme only and could optionally bundle Samsung Care+ at £179, though a membership fee could apply if the insurance was declined.

The guarantee offered the consumer 50% of the device RRP if upgrading between months 12-15 addressing Samsung’s market disadvantage of lower residual values. Eagle-eyed readers may note that the RRP price schedule as defined in the New Galaxy Club Terms and Conditions listed the Z-Fold7 1TB at £2,099 versus the retail launch RRP at £2,149. A genuine mistake, or did someone decide to bake a bit of arbitrary risk management into the small print with a residual value guarantee at 48.8% on Samsung’s most expensive device. The other difference may have been unintended, but the S25 Ultra storage labels are incorrect. Sloppy.

There were two payment methods, outright or 24-month 0% finance via Klarna with a 10% deposit up front. If the customer missed or chose to upgrade after the window, for finance customers, Samsung would settle whatever remained on the loan, although by month 16, ~67% would have been paid off the principal. The later you wait, the less Samsung pays out, obviously. Outright purchase customers would get “fair market residual value at Samsung’s reasonable discretion” which could be anything, no guarantee and a convenient escape valve for the programme.

In order to secure the RVG there were condition requirements. The device would have to power on, hold a charge and be fully functional. There could be no screen or back glass cracks and no liquid damage and as per usual, normal wear and tear was accepted. Surcharges for damage are listed by model in the table below:

There was a set of conditions defining unacceptable handset returns and an indication of timelines for the upgrade and return processing which identified the familiar MTR Group5 as Samsung’s partner. Aside from the labelling issue and the small matter of the Z-Fold7 1TB, the terms and conditions were transparent, including the exit provision in 14.5 which stated that Samsung, “may at our sole discretion choose to discontinue the New Galaxy Club programme at any point in time for new purchases without notice.”. Crystal.

Continue reading for:

• Why IFRS 15 forced Samsung to treat New Galaxy Club sales as leases, not sales

• The compounding margin trap: why loyal repeat customers cost Samsung more, not less

• What retention rate Samsung would need for the programme to break even

• Materiality analysis: how New Galaxy Club stacked up against Samsung UK’s financial thresholds

• What a sustainable “Galaxy Club 2.0” might look like

As an alternative to paid subscription, this article is available as a PDF report here.

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Key Findings: Gross written premiums crossed €400m for the first time at €402.6m, up 9.9% YoY. Combined ratio of 92.2% sits at the favourable end of the peer range (Assurant EU 95%, D&G 94.5%). Club.Weiss acquisition adds 130 Austrian specialist retail partners to 8,300 existing; Samsung rental deal validates the hypothesis. Self-funding model: zero inventory, zero debt, 213% solvency ratio. Post-D&G acquisition, Wertgarantie is Europe’s largest independent warranty provider. Estimated EBITDA €45-50m.

I’ve mentioned it before, I like the rental model. No big cash outlay, payments are regular, simple return and upgrade options, and the rental firm looking after the second or third lives of the device can be a key driver of the device Circular Economy. But, the capital requirements and profit lag can be tough to work through initially, although, when the distribution infrastructure is already in place, the economics shift. You may, or may not, have heard of them, but Wertgarantie, Germany's leading independent warranty insurer appears to have reached the same conclusion, quietly acquiring an Austrian appliance rental platform in late 2024 and signing Samsung as a partner nine months later. It's an unexpected move from a 60-year-old specialist insurer, until you look at how they've always operated…

Recap

Wertgarantie, according to their website, started out when founder Kurt Jodexnis began insuring television sets in 1963. In 1970, the arrangement was incorporated as Elektro Dauer Garantie Reparaturversicherung AG (EDG) and then in 1980 Videowartungsring GmbH & Co. KG (VWR) was established to cover video recorders. Logical, yes. Excessive, probably, and in 1988 EDG and VWR merged to form WertGarantie Technische Versicherung AG. The 90s saw in a rebranding, the founding of Pet Insurer, AGILA and the introduction of bicycle insurance.

International market development began in 2003 as the business started writing policies in Austria and by 2009, Wertgarantie was active in eight countries. In 2014 they acquired Société Française de Garantie (SFG), a leading independent warranty provider in France and in 2018, GARANTE, a family-run warranty broker based in Madrid was brought on board.

Along the way they’ve added home warranty product lines for utilities, hearing aid protection, e-Scooter insurance, converted from an AG to an SE (Societas Europaea)1, simplifying future cross-border merger activity, decided that Pet Insurance was better off elsewhere selling AGILA to the Pinnacle Pet Group in 2023, with Wertgarantie retaining a minority stake in the JAB Holding-backed platform and Patrick Döring (CEO) joining the PPG supervisory board. They’ve rebranded the bicycle insurance to Linexo and most recently, management pushed the traditional insurance value chain boundaries by acquiring Club.Weiss Handels GmbH. The Austrian-based firm manages the operational rental business for the Club.Weiss association of approximately 130 specialist retail partners joining Wertgarantie’s 8,300 existing distribution partners across Europe2.

Patrick Döring, joined Wertgarantie in 1999 and took the helm in 2020. Döring’s CV includes an eight-year stint in the German Bundestag (2005-2013), culminating in his role as FDP General Secretary under party chairman Philipp Rösler3. When the FDP fell below the 5% threshold in 2013 and lost all its parliamentary seats, Döring returned full-time to Wertgarantie, where he had maintained board positions throughout his political career. So, whether politics lost and insurance gained will all come out in the numbers.

Continue reading for:

• FY2024 performance breakdown by geography and product

• Why Wertgarantie’s 55% loss ratio compares unfavourably to D&G’s 44%, and whether it matters

• The zero-inventory claims model that transfers fulfilment risk to retail partners

• Peer comparison: Wertgarantie vs Assurant UK vs Assurant EU vs D&G

• Valuation framework: what an acquirer might pay and why shareholders would hold out

• Alternatively, you can download a pdf copy of the report here

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Key Findings: Assurant's European operations generated approximately £490m in external revenue during FY2024, representing 6-7% of Global Lifestyle. The Netherlands entity, not the UK, is now the larger underwriter at €236m gross written premium versus £166m, and materially more profitable with a 19% loss ratio compared to the UK's 74%. UK underwriting turned loss-making for the first time in recent years, with management attributing the deterioration to fraud and claim inflation in unusually specific language for a statutory report. Despite the profit pressure, approximately £80m was extracted upstream from European entities during the year, a pattern consistent with a parent treating the region as a cash cow rather than a growth engine. The Asurion-D&G transaction has reset the competitive landscape; whether Assurant responds with a counter-move or continues to harvest European cashflows will define the next chapter.

I read somewhere last week that Assurant was the world’s largest secondary device processor. I don’t think that’s quite right, but they’re certainly a very different company from the heady days of insuring UK mortgages, loan and credit card repayments when market forces were still pushing 100% commission rates and the 2008 financial crisis was but a glint in Michael Burry’s good eye. A number of analysts already cover Assurant (AIZ)1, so I’ll focus on the most recent international filings that can give us a picture of local performance, something not covered in any detail by the bods at Morgan Stanley, Piper Sandler and UBS et al.

Recap

In the UK, Assurant began life in 1989 as Bankers Insurance Company Limited, a subsidiary of American Bankers Insurance Company of Florida. From initially writing livestock and bloodstock policies, additional niche lines were added which included country properties, classic cars and personal accident with a pivot around 1996 to focus on creditor insurance and extended warranties. Despite some hairy encounters with personal accident losses in 1997 the subsidiary remained well supported by their US parent and widened the product offer by establishing an associated life undertaking in 1998. In 1999 Fortis, the Belgo-Dutch giant acquired American Bankers for approximately $2.6bn and merged it with their American Security Group to form a major player in US credit insurance.

Setting the future in motion, in 2001 Assurant began to provide underwriting and marketing support for the Signal Holdings LLC who handled the servicing of extended warranties and protection programs for mobile protection products distributed via US carriers including US Cellular and Cricket. At the same time Fortis began unloading its US insurance operations, selling their life business to Hartford and in 2004, listing “Assurant” via IPO and selling an initial 56% stake in the company. In 2006 the UK insurance business began expanding into Europe by establishing branches in Germany, Italy and Spain and began creeping along the mortgage payment protection insurance value chain by acquiring a number of distribution partners.

Then, as the PPI scandal gathered pace and Michael Burry’s bet came good, payment protection became way too hot to handle and the subprime mortgage market promptly disappeared. Fortunately, a bright spark in Assurant’s old South Dade Campus decided that spending $250m on the Signal Holdings2 was not only the best way to protect the mobile insurance revenue stream, but also to kickstart the pivot towards protecting the gadget that was about to revolutionise global personal communications, the smartphone and thus Assurant’s Global Connected Living strategy was set.

Assurant’s European business got in on the act and acquired Crewe-based Lifestyle Services Group from PE firm Providence Equity (Phones4U) for $160m in 20133, giving access to the (almost) uniquely British packaged bank account distribution of mobile insurance, as well as some much needed capability through what was essentially a reverse integration. Consolidating their extended warranty leadership position further, particularly in the US automotive business, Assurant then acquired The Warranty Group from TPG Capital for approximately $2.5bn which closed in 2018, and brought along additional insurance infrastructure in Europe and Asia. As with many UK insurance undertakings, Brexit prompted the quiet repatriation of European premiums, in Assurant’s case, to an entity in the Netherlands and that, to coin a phrase, was that.

Continue reading for:

• Detailed FY2024 performance analysis including the intercompany revenue breakdown that reveals external growth was effectively flat

• UK insurance profitability: why AGIL’s first underwriting loss and management’s unusually specific fraud commentary signals a material problem

• EU versus UK comparison: how the Netherlands entity’s 19% loss ratio exposes the UK’s vulnerability to consumer fraud

• Balance sheet analysis: the £80m upstream extraction during a year of profit pressure, and what it reveals about parent company intentions

• Strategic outlook: Asurion’s D&G acquisition, SquareTrade’s sub-scale position, and Assurant’s options

• Alternatively this article is available as a PDF download here

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