Guangzhou's Used Phone Market: Transformations in Offline Transactions and the Rise of Exports

Guangzhou's Used Phone Market: Transformations in Offline Transactions and the Rise of ExportsIn many people's memories, large-scale secondhand markets may already be a thing of the past. The rise of online and offline recycling and secondhand trading platforms like Xianyu and Aihuishou has led fewer people to specifically visit secondhand markets

Guangzhou's Used Phone Market: Transformations in Offline Transactions and the Rise of Exports

In many people's memories, large-scale secondhand markets may already be a thing of the past. The rise of online and offline recycling and secondhand trading platforms like Xianyu and Aihuishou has led fewer people to specifically visit secondhand markets. Many cities' large secondhand trading markets have closed down or transformed, leaving only scattered individual vendors in the streets and alleys. However, unlike other cities, Guangzhou, a megacity and a major distribution center for electronics in South China, maintains a strong secondhand trading atmosphere. Haiyin Square and Dashatou have long been renowned secondhand and electronics distribution areas in South China. Previously, we wrote an article about the current state of secondhand goods on Xianyu, sparking widespread discussion. One netizen asked, "What's the situation with offline secondhand markets now? In our area, there are only a few mobile phone stores that buy and sell used phones." This question piqued my curiosity, and I spent an afternoon visiting several digital malls near Haiyin Square to find the answer. I discovered that the offline secondhand market has quietly undergone a significant transformation.

Foreigners Become Frequent Customers in the Used Phone Market

Even on a weekday afternoon, the traffic flow in Haiyin Electric Market was considerable, with many people stopping in front of shops to inquire or test phones. However, an unexpected sight caught my eye: foreigners had become the most common customers. After walking around the market, I found that the ratio of Chinese to foreign customers buying or inquiring about phones was approximately 3:7. I even overheard some foreigners haggling with shop owners in fluent Mandarin (many were Southeast Asian Chinese or overseas Chinese).

Honestly, before entering the market, I never expected to see this. Watching foreigners moving between shops, I felt like I was in a foreign market. Many shops have bilingual Chinese-English signs, and some even have trilingual Chinese-English-Arabic signs. Besides phone numbers, they also provide contact information for overseas chat apps. Clearly, exporting has become a new, and possibly the primary, avenue for these businesses to make money. I discovered that many foreigners were "procuring" used mobile phones, 3C accessories, and small household appliances; those buying only used mobile phones were in the minority. Even those buying phones mostly focused on low-to-mid-range models, with the most popular being several Chinese low-to-mid-range phones from three or four years ago, mainly OPPO, Xiaomi, and vivo brands.

In contrast, Chinese customers mainly focused on iPhones and other high-end models. Standing at the entrance of one shop, looking at the phones on display, the owner directly asked, "Young man, which iPhone are you interested in? We have basically all models at great prices." At the time, I was just looking at Huawei phones.

I took the opportunity to chat with the owner. When asked which phones foreigners mostly preferred, the owner said, "It depends on the region. Black customers like cheap phones, they aren't too picky about the model, though they sometimes choose specific brands. South American and Middle Eastern customers are similar, but they generally prefer higher-priced, newer phones."

The owner explained that older low-to-mid-range models from OPPO, Redmi, and vivo are the most frequently purchased by these overseas buyers because they are cheap and plentiful. These brands all have overseas operations, and it's relatively easy to flash them with overseas system versions, allowing foreigners to use them "out of the box." The owner showed me an OPPO A9: "This one sells quite well."

The OPPO A9, released by OPPO in 2019, features a MediaTek P70 processor, a dual rear camera (16MP + 2MP) with professional mode and other photography functions. Its highlight was its 16MP front camera with AI beauty and a large aperture, making it one of the best selfie phones in its price range at the time.

The owner said the OPPO A9 is very popular in the Middle East and Africa. The price was 280 RMB for a single unit, but cheaper in bulk, with packaging, shipping, and system flashing services also available. I looked at the OPPO A9 in my hand; it wasn't running the familiar Chinese ColorOS, but an international version with Google services. Although the average price of the same model on Xianyu is 150-200 RMB, considering the various after-sales services, the price isn't too expensive for bulk purchases.

Besides various older used phones, I also found many familiar models on display, including Redmi's recently released Turbo 4 series. These models, less than a month old, wouldn't typically appear in a secondhand market. Upon inquiry, I learned that these were new phones, mainly for customers in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia. Residents in these countries have relatively higher income levels, and Redmi's thousand-yuan phones are very popular locally.

The countries the owner mentioned are all covered by Xiaomi's overseas business. Even so, new domestic models are still popular because similarly configured models are often released two or three months later overseas, or some models may not be released at all.

OPPO and vivo don't enjoy this same treatment because overseas consumers interested in these thousand-yuan phones are mostly budget-conscious performance enthusiasts. They demand higher phone performance, while OPPO and vivos models in this price range often focus on photography and design, which doesn't align with these users' needs.

The Wholesale and Resale Business of African Merchants

Following the owner's suggestion, I went to Dashatou Secondhand Market, witnessing a true "window for Guangzhou's used phone foreign trade." As one of Guangzhou's earliest electronic secondhand markets, Dashatou once saw its traffic decline due to reduced demand for used phones and the surge in online recycling channels, but it quickly became a favorite "treasure hunting" spot for foreigners.

Dashatou Secondhand Market was crowded with foreigners purchasing used phones, representing a diverse range of ethnicities, predominantly Black. The aisles were almost devoid of Chinese people (only a few delivery staff were moving around), making me feel somewhat out of place.

While you can still see newer Huawei and iPhone models in Haiyin Electronics Market, the shops in Dashatou mostly stock several-year-old models; their biggest draw is their low prices. Interestingly, besides Chinese brands like OPPO, vivo, Huawei, and Xiaomi, you can also find many overseas models here, such as Google and Samsung phones.

After thirty minutes of wandering around, almost overwhelmed by the strong smell of cologne from the foreigners, I gained a better understanding of where used Chinese mobile phones end up. African buyers show a particular fondness for OPPO and vivo, with older Huawei and Honor models also popular, while Xiaomi and Redmi brands are favored by buyers from South America and Southeast Asia.

I personally speculate that this is because African users prioritize selfie and photography capabilities, with less emphasis on performance (as evidenced by the global mobile game revenue rankings, where Africa's mobile game revenue is far lower than other regions), while Southeast Asia and South America lean towards performance-oriented phones, with their demand for mobile games influencing the flow of used phones. Of course, this isn't absolute. On-site observations show that some well-designed OPPO and vivo phones are also popular with Middle Eastern and South American merchants, suggesting good popularity in the overseas female market.

To verify this hypothesis, I waited at the entrance of Dashatou and "caught" a buyer from Nigeria. Through brief conversation, I learned he was only 25 years old but had been involved in used phone procurement in China for three years, to the point that when I approached him in slightly broken English, he responded in fluent Mandarin.

He described that used Chinese mobile phones are very popular in Nigeria; his job is to send batches of phones back home (Nigeria) at intervals and assess the popularity and sales of different phone models. OPPO and vivo are indeed popular brands locally, due to their superior portrait shooting experience and often excellent charging speeds. Fast charging is a very popular feature in Africa because many countries and regions lack stable power supplies, and fast charging allows users to charge their phones as much as possible when electricity is available. The fact that OPPO and vivo's low-to-mid-range phones often undergo deep battery life optimization also means users don't need to worry about their phones running out of battery when electricity is unavailable.

This need surprised me and gave me a new perspective on consumer trends for electronics in developing countries. In our view, better performance and stronger hardware are core requirements for mobile phones and other electronics. This is because the domestic mobile phone market is highly developed, with mobile phone penetration among the highest globally. Given the intense market competition, we naturally strive for the best. However, in most African countries, smartphones are mainly imported products, generally expensive and significantly out of reach for many due to income levels.

According to the Nigerian buyer, a brand new iPhone is a luxury item in their country; many people have to spend a whole years income to buy the cheapest standard iPhone. Given this situation in Nigeria, Africa's largest economy, its easy to understand why used Chinese mobile phones are so popular there.

However, besides cheap Chinese phones, older iPhones are also popular. According to the buyer, older used iPhones are favored by the middle-income group because the user experience is almost the same as the newer models, but at a much lower price.

With the global rise in living