Best smartphone trade-ins in South Africa

A comparison by MyBroadband shows that Samsung South Africa’s online trade-in website offers the worst smartphone-for-cash trade-in values among several major online trade-in outlets.

A MyBroadband reader recently wanted to trade in his Samsung Galaxy S22 256GB before upgrading to a new device.

Considering Samsung’s commanding market share in South Africa and its extensive aftersales support and footprint, he assumed he would be able to get a fair price for his fully functional device.

He was surprised that Samsung only offered him R2,000 in cash for his device, despite it having no screen or chassis damage and being fully functional.

This was an astounding R13,999 — or 87% — less than what he had paid for the phone in early 2022.

The only way he could get a R5,000 cash payout was to trade the phone in against a purchase of the Galaxy S24 FE, Galaxy Z Flip 6, or Galaxy Z Fold 6.

If he had done so, the cost of upgrading to the S24 FE, the cheapest option of the three, would effectively have been R9,999.

However, that would have given him a device offering only marginal improvements over the S22.

Figuring he could get a better deal elsewhere, he generated estimates from reputable third-party trade-in outlets Epic Deals and WeFix, which offered R5,400 and R4,800 for a cash trade-in, respectively.

He also looked into offers from the iStore, a prominent Apple retailer, to see how much it would offer for him to make the switch from Android.

While the iStore did not have a specific estimate for his model on its website, it offered up to R5,200 for the Galaxy S21, his phone’s predecessor, and R8,850 for the Galaxy 23, its successor.

The S22’s trade-in should be somewhere between those two amounts.

The iStore also offered R12,700 for the Galaxy S21 Ultra, compared with R2,638 at the Samsung store.

Below are several more examples of the iStore offering better prices on premium Samsung Galaxy smartphones trade-ins than the Samsung online store:

• Galaxy S20 128GB — R3,900 vs R1,061
• Galaxy S21 256GB — R5,200 vs R1,683
• Galaxy S21 Ultra 512GB — R7,900 vs R2,638
• Galaxy S22 Ultra 1TB — R10,700 vs R3,760
• Galaxy S23 256GB — R8,850 vs R3,366
• Galaxy S23 Ultra 256GB — R12,700 vs R4,427
• Galaxy Note 20 128GB — R4,550 vs R1,410
• Galaxy Note 20 Ultra 256GB — R6,600 vs R2,183

The caveat to opting for the iStore trade-in is that the value of the device can only be paid back into a user’s bank account if they take out a new iPhone contract.

The other options are to use the trade-in value as credit towards an iStore purchase or a reduction in monthly contract payments.

Cash trade-in values compared

MyBroadband compared the trade-in values of Apple and Samsung flagships from the last few years on the Samsung South Africa online store, Epic Deals, and WeFix, to see how their offers compared.

Our focus was specifically on stores willing to pay money into users’s bank accounts for their devices.

We found WeFix generally offered the best prices on iPhone trade-ins, while Epic Deals had the best offers for Galaxy trade-ins.

It should be noted that this was solely when comparing trade-in values in exchange for cash and with devices in working condition without cracked screens or damaged cases.

Those with completely broken devices from the past few years might get the best deal from Samsung.

It offers the same cash payback for many completely broken flagships from the past two years as it would for fully functional devices, provided you buy one of its recent new devices.

At the time of publication, for example, trading in a broken Galaxy S22 would get you a cashback of R5,000 on one of the latest Galaxy smartphones, even if it cannot even turn on.

With flagship S-series releases, Samsung typically also offers special promotions like its R10,000 guaranteed trade-in deal.

With this offer, Samsung pays R10,000 for flagship devices from all major brands released over the past few years, even if they have cracked screens and rear glass.

The only condition is that the phone must be able to switch on.

The table below compares cash trade-in values for various popular smartphones on Epic Deals, the Samsung South Africa online store, and WeFix.

In all cases, the estimates were based on a phone without any screen cracks or severe case damage.