May Round Up
Dear prudence...
After looking back at my company and market analysis release cycle since January, last week felt like a good time to give you and me a week off from what has, by any stretch, been a heavy publishing schedule. I hope that ten company analysis reports, eight market analysis reports and the monthly round ups justify a break for all of us and, Retech Days happened to be a great opportunity to take stock and go into listening mode for a few days. But restful it was not.
Much of my corporate life was spent on a plane and then living for five days out of a carry-on. But, for the last six-ish years, travel has been firmly centred on family holidays, as well it should. Clearly, I’m out of practice as I left my passport in the airport taxi, had my credit card declined all over the place, locked myself out of the hotel room and, for some reason, defaulted to holiday Greek whenever someone spoke to me in German. Still, thanks to the excellent staff on reception at the Estrel hotel and the wonderful team at The Big Phone Store for hosting a very chilled networking event that calmed the stress and just about got me through Tuesday.
Kudos to Dataxis for putting on a great networking event and to all the sponsors and of course big thanks to all the speakers and moderators for taking the time to share their thoughts. Here are mine from the last month…
Market
According to Counterpoint’s Q1 2026 update1, global smartphone revenues increased 8% YoY driven by strong premium device demand and pricing adjustments as OEMs passed on increasing costs2. According to the report total Q1 revenue came in at $117bn despite a decline in shipments which drove Global ASP up 12% to $399. Apple’s blistering Q2 FY2026 results clearly contributed as the iPhone 17 occupied the top three spots in the Q1 best selling smartphone stakes3. The shift to premium devices was further corroborated by CIRP’s latest reports on device share with the five current iPhone 17 models accounting for 82% of US sales and pushing the Apple weighted average retail price up to $1,042 from $971 in Q1 2025. Closer to home, Omdia reported that the European smartphone market grew to 33 million units up 2% YoY driven by user demand and channel frontloading4. According to the release European ASPs hit a record €580 caused largely by lower availability of devices costing less than €200 that made up less than 25% of shipments.
Despite the positive Counterpoint news, Q1 2026 equipment revenues from the major US and Western European operators were a mixed bag. The US operators continued to pay handsomely for their growth and mature western markets continued to decline in revenue terms. The UK was no exception with LTM Q1 2026 equipment revenues for BT/EE down 9.2%, VMO2 down 6.2% and VodafoneThree flat, but only because of their consolidated post-merger reporting position. To some extent the cause will likely have been driven by, according to the FT, the UK mobile groups suffering their worst year of customer losses as they lost a combined total of 972,000 mobile subscribers in 20255. Where did they all go? Well, it appears that Lebara, iDMobile (Currys) and Sky combined, put on a total of 1.5m new subs as customers sought out more affordable plans. Stitching the trends together highlights the continued squeeze on consumer budgets and confirms that new device sales will continue to weaken over 2026, lifecycles will continue to lengthen and the supply of secondary devices will likely tighten two to three years out without successful intervention via attractively priced upgrade and trade-in programmes.
Speaking of which, Apple's own trade-in values moved at the end of May offering an indication of how hard they’re pulling on the upgrade lever, and the latest data show most values rising. In the United States the move was near-uniform: of the devices tracked, fifteen rose and one fell, led by the iPhone 15 Pro up $35 to $410, with the 16, the 15 Pro Max, the 14 Pro Max and the 14 Pro each up $25. The UK shifted the same way at the top of the range, the 16 Pro Max recovering £55 to £640 and the 16 Pro adding £30; Germany, as my EU proxy, barely moved, the 15 Pro Max up €25 to €525 and the 16 Pro Max up €20 to €700. Overall though, these are temporary recoveries along the normal downward trend: in the UK, the 15 Pro Max held at £645 through most of 2025 before falling to £510 by October and a £430 trough in March, so this period's £450 leaves it down roughly 30% year on year; the 14 Pro Max has slid almost without interruption from £575 to £340 over the same stretch. That values are nudging upward suggests Apple actively competing for the new-sales funnel rather than letting the residual curve play out.
With risks towards future supply constraints, secondary market growth still remains the best antidote for sluggish new device sales and it benefits a far wider ecosystem beyond the OEM. It was a bit disappointing therefore to read the positioning piece from Alchemy on provenance and grading in the Australian press6. In the interest of balance, I’d suggest that the general consumer hasn’t got a clue what’s inside their new phone either, and there are a great many, in fact I’d go as far to say the majority of, smartphone repair and refurbishing companies all over the globe that work hard to build credibility and trust by delivering quality product to their customers again and again. A passion clearly visible in many of the panels at the Retech Days event. Is the market perfect? No. Are grading standards more like a sliding scale? Frustratingly, yes. Is there more to be done on quality? Clearly. The point about internal components is a fair one; cosmetic grading doesn’t say anything about whether a part is genuine or where it came from. That's a real gap worth closing, and the one Digital Product Passports are being asked to close, a regime Alchemy is as well placed as anyone to apply through the Apple programme it operates. Advocating for verifiable repair histories and auditable supply chains is one thing. Achieving that sector wide is an altogether different challenge and a billion-dollar business would do well to pull everyone up and refrain from punching down.
Companies
Let’s get the biggest non-event in my financial release watchlist out of the way. Back Market UK filed 18 pages of entity accounts that told me absolutely nothing about their operations except that the amounts receivable from the Jung SAS parent for the provision of sales and marketing functions increased £550k or 24% and Other Operating Income, likely a second stream of inter-company income, increased 50.8% (£1,120,920) to £3,325,859, eclipsing the primary inter-company. Administrative expenses were up £1,271,476 or 28.2% to £5,773,823 and entity profit swung positive to £162k. My faux-outrage that the marketplace market leader continues to give me nothing to report on goes on.
Foxway Q1 2026
Foxway on the other hand offer plenty of source material7. Three months on from a Q4 that papered over a soft year, management must have been pleased that Q1 2026 landed with a bit of a kick, although CEO Patrick Höijer attributed the result to "strong execution and exceptional performance in Recommerce C&E" rather than a broader based recovery. Group net sales rose 25.8% reported to SEK 2,171.1m (€187.1m) versus SEK 1,725.9m (€148.8m), with organic growth of 32.3% in constant currency, the strongest first quarter in coverage history. Adjusted operational EBITDA grew 134.0% to SEK 83.3m (€7.2m) from SEK 35.6m (€3.1m), lifting the margin to 3.6% from 1.9% and converting an Operating loss of SEK -4.1m a year ago into an EBIT of SEK 52.9m (€4.6m). Operating cash flow remained negative at SEK -91.6m (€-7.9m), materially better than Q1 2025's SEK -148.6m, with working capital again the headwind as C&E inventory built to capture demand and CWS absorbed customer pre-ordering; Höijer also noted the SEK 300m equity injection from Nordic Capital and Norvestor landed in the period, framing the use of proceeds as "various growth opportunities including within C&E", a broader characterisation than the AI sourcing-specific framing that accompanied the announcement. Segmentally, the three stories sharpened rather than converged.
Recommerce C&E delivered net sales of SEK 997.6m (€86.0m), up 56.5% reported and 68.7% in constant currency, with adjusted operational EBITDA of SEK 100.5m (€8.7m) at a 10.1% margin versus 6.2%, attributed to AI-driven memory demand, Enterprise sourcing and Teqcycle scaling. Notably, management pre-empted the obvious analytical question: "While we are clearly benefiting from a favorable cycle, we are mindful that this market is becoming more volatile. Prices have corrected from April onwards as significant volumes were released into the market, and we expect gross margin in Wholesale to normalise to historical levels in Q2."
CWS posted net sales of SEK 579.5m (€50.0m), up 21.9% reported and 22.8% in constant currency, with adjusted operational EBITDA swinging positive to SEK 8.1m (€0.7m) at a 1.1% margin from a SEK -10.1m loss, driven by first lifecycle ramp from H2 2025 onboardings and Services revenue, though ITAD revenue continued to drift lower. The growth, however, is not purely demand-led: Höijer observed that "new device price and supply uncertainty has, as expected, started to influence ordering patterns, with some customers becoming more cautious while others are securing medium-term needs in advance, resulting in some buffer stock build-up", a forward dynamic worth flagging.
At Recommerce Mobile, net sales fell 3.5% to SEK 610.1m (€52.6m), and whilst constant currency growth was a nominally positive 1.3%, adjusted operational EBITDA suffered a 70.3% drop to SEK 11.4m (€1.0m) at a margin of 1.9% from 6.1%, with January and February "characterised by price competition, particularly in Apple products, and a less favourable sales mix that weighed on gross margin", with B2B and Marketplaces recovery only emerging in March. Management introduced a new variable into the Mobile narrative, noting "the general market has been constrained on the sourcing side, partly due to supply disruptions in the Middle East", though emphasised that as Foxway "primarily sources within Europe, the impact has been less direct"(?).
Underneath the quarter, the ABD Romanian refurbishment acquisition completed and Rohit Sodha was appointed President of Recommerce Mobile, the segment's third leadership change inside twelve months. Tough gig.
Assurant Q1 2026
After the steady margin compression I highlighted in February, Assurant’s Connected Living Q1 results turned the other way8. Adjusted EBITDA rose 18% to $146.9m, though about two points of that came from currency. On a constant-currency basis the gain was 15.5%. Net earned premiums, fees and other income grew 20% to $1,480.2m, and the rough margin reads around 9.9% by my calculation, a tentative step up from the 9.4% full-year figure I flagged in February. Assurant’s key device metrics showed material gains with Devices Protected jumping to 68.6m after adding 2.3m in three months against 1.9m for the whole of FY2025. That would be consistent with the Best Buy back-book finally landing. Devices Serviced reached 7.4m, up 32% year on year and well up on the 4.8m record low of Q3 2025. Before reading that as a demand recovery, the likelier explanation is the migration of a large carrier client's in-force subscriber base, listed under new programmes, inflating throughput through onboarding rather than organic upgrade flow. Management attributes growth to subscriber gains in domestic mobile protection and trade-in performance, with cost of sales up 43% on higher trade-in volumes, the operating cash flow softer on the timing of mobile premium and fee collections, and a $7.3m mobile reserve release as a new client's actual loss experience replaced initial pricing assumptions. Home Warranty remains pre-revenue, parked in Corporate and still guided to a $140m full-year loss. The margin erosion question from an increasing mix of low fee logistic revenue I tackled in the Assurant Connected Living Q4 FY2025 report still stands; but for one quarter at least, the direction on both margin and volume was finally upward.
Best Buy Q1 2026
Best Buy's first quarter, ended 2 May 2026, posted enterprise revenue of $8.94bn and domestic comparable sales up 1.8%, a clean reversal of the 0.7% decline a year earlier9. The category mix is a useful proxy for what’s happening to Assurant's protected base, and the picture is split. Computing and Mobile Phones, the largest category, rose 4.2% and carried much of the quarter's growth, although since Best Buy attaches AppleCare+ to Apple products, the Assurant-relevant share is the remainder. Consumer electronics fell around 3% and appliances dropped nearly 16%, both Geek Squad Protection categories backed by Assurant. As the book earns through over several years there’s significant insulation from any single quarter of sales, so this is a note for the file rather than a worry, but it does temper the read-across from Best Buy's recovery.
ATRenew Q1 2026
ATRenew posted first quarter numbers on 19 May that extended the trajectory set out in the ATRenew Q4 FY202510. Total net revenues reached RMB6,160.1m (USD893.0m), up 32.4% YoY and ahead of the FY2025 rate of 28.9% and the Q4 figure of 29.0%. The headline GAAP growth rates, operating income up 154.9% and net income up 215.7%, are sound but flattered by thin prior-year bases, so the adjusted figures are the ones to hold onto: adjusted income from operations of RMB190.5m (USD27.6m), up 70.2%, and adjusted net income of RMB140.1m (USD20.3m), up 79.6%. Both comfortably outpaced revenue, lifting the adjusted operating margin to roughly 3.1% from 2.6% across FY2025. The driver is the one flagged as the pressure point in the Q4 review; selling and marketing expenses grew just 17.9%, well below revenue, taking the rate down to 8.0% from 9.0% a year earlier, while merchandise costs rose 33.2% against product revenue growth of 34.4%, so the first-party margin ticked up again. The volume line warrants a closer look before anyone reads it as a unit story: 10.8 million products transacted against 9.5 million, up under 14%, against revenue up 32%, confirms a price and mix effect as the business routes more devices through higher-value first-party retail rather than simply moving more boxes. The balance sheet absorbed the quarter's capital decisions; the broader liquidity position narrowed to RMB1,718.8m (USD249.2m) from RMB2,187.4m at year-end, as inventory built further to RMB1,486.2m (USD215.5m) and the dividend and buybacks were funded, with short-term borrowings actually reduced and still no long-term debt. The USD50m repurchase programme was extended on results day for a further twelve months. Second quarter guidance of RMB6,240m to RMB6,340m (USD904.6m to USD919.1m) implies approximately 25% to 27% growth, a modest deceleration off a stiffer comparable.
John Lewis FY2025
John Lewis filed their FY2026 accounts, and as ever they're one of the few non-specialist retailers to break out technology sales in their revenue analysis, which rose 3.6% to £1,410m. But the warranty book, tells a quieter and more interesting story. The deferral, the slice of warranty income carved out of each year's sales, has now fallen three years running: £17m in FY2024, £15m in FY2025 and £12m this year, down roughly 29% across the period. Releases back to the income statement have held broadly flat at £16m to £17m, so more has flowed out of the book than into it each year, and the stock of warranty liabilities on the balance sheet has duly shrunk from £26m to £20m. The notable part is that this contraction has run alongside stable to rising technology sales. Were the book simply tracking a shrinking technology business, sales would be falling too. They aren't. That points to a mix shift: either fewer products are sold with a free warranty attached, or the products being sold sit at lower price points carrying smaller warranty allocations. Three years of the same direction makes it more than a one-off.
Other Company News
After the Q1 new device sales battering, VMO2 are doubling down, literally on refurbished device sales11. Their new “Responsible Business” plan covers four broad themes of Climate, Connection, Circularity and Control. The targets under Circularity include being the trusted provider for twice as many customers seeking high-quality refurbished devices by 2030, enabling twice as many customers to trade in and recycle their unused devices by 2030 and championing a reuse culture in 30 cities by 2030, shaping mechanisms so that tech stays in use for longer. Quite what mechanisms they intend to shape was a level of detail not published, but the two targets that do make sense will be music to Likewize’s ears.
With the main US carrier insurance programmes tied up with Asurion and Assurant, getting some device protection practice is a difficult task. Allstate have aimed their Protection Plans sights elsewhere and partnered with the Associated Carrier Group (ACG) consisting of tier 2 and tier 3 network operators and resellers. The agreement announced in April12 gives ACG members access to Allstate’s device protection, claims support, repair and replacement services and customer service programmes that have, until now, been reserved for the larger national carriers. Imagine the surprise when ACG announced that they had selected Likewize as their device protection partner just 17 days later13. All those Alaskan customers are going to be spoilt for choice.
The announcement that Cartlow by Basatne has become an Assurant Authorized Reseller was interesting14. That’s not a designation I’d noted before, although I may well have missed previous announcements. According to their site, the programme offers access to Assurant’s large volume of stock list inventory, alongside the usual easy purchasing and ESG via transparent and sustainable operations blah. Assurant have been selling wholesale and B2C via their mywit store across eBay sites for years. Adding a formal reseller programme feels like one bureaucratic layer too far.
Investments
Obviously the biggest news in corporate development last month was Vodafone splashing another £4.3bn to buy out CK Hutchison’s 49% share15. Whilst earlier than the original 3 year option that kicked in if the merged entity reached £16.5bn. Despite Vodafone’s offer valuing the enterprise at £13.85, the deal clearly works for Hutchison as they continue offloading European telecoms assets. I’d assume once Vodafone have full control, they will be ticking off the cost synergy checklists at some pace and a reducing Three influence is likely to make things a little harder for bolttech as they lose a key advocate in the European market.
Surprisingly little news from bolttech themselves this month and the only interesting snippet was that MoneyHero interim CEO and CFO, Danny Leung, noted that whilst the company was aware of the merger reports, they would neither confirm, deny or comment on market speculation16. Boring. We all love a bit of speculation.
Asurion’s love affair with the Philippines continues as they opened their newest customer solutions centre in Cebu City marking their sixth site in the country and joining three existing customer service centres, a remanufacturing facility and a shared services hub17. The investment involves creating approximately 2000 new local jobs over the next two years, adding to the existing 18,000 people currently employed worldwide. It’s been a busy month for the leading global tech care company who announced the launch of a bi-annual NEXT event series designed to showcase the innovation, platforms, and capabilities18 and managed to fit in the launch of a free two year extended warranty programme for selected consumer electronics with Walmart in Canada19. No more news on the D&G acquisition yet though.
Finally, many thanks to all of my subscribers, new and old and especially those that choose to pay. Delivering regular research takes a significant amount of my time and effort and I really appreciate the support. It was great to meet many of you at Retech Days last week and the feedback means a lot. If you’ve happened across this publication and a subscription is not for you, please check out reports.finsur.co.uk where you’ll find all of the main company and market analysis articles available for individual purchase.
Peace,
sb
For a bit of commentary on how Apple and Samsung coped with “Ramageddon” (Credit: Ben Wood at FDM CCS Insight for that gem) see the April Round Up