In a rather interesting report by Reuters, Samsung is apparently working to establish a structured plan to sell refurbished high-end smartphones. Set to be finalized as soon as 2017, phones that involved in this program will apparently come from the upgrade program (similar in nature to Maxis Zeroulution and Apple iPhone Upgrade Program) that the company has set up in selected market throughout the world.
In other words, old phones from the participants of the upgrade program will be cleaned up and fixed by Samsung if deemed necessary before the company sell them back once again at stores. Of course, given their status as off-season used devices, these refurbished Samsung high-end smartphones will to be sold off at lower price although exact details regarding the new program are still not available at the moment.
In Malaysia, official refurbished products are usually only offered to customers that involved in warranty claims although this particular policy depends on respective manufacturers or distributors. That being said, refurbished products are actually freely available in our market with their legitimacy varies from one unit to another and warranty policy that are usually restricted to in-house terms – similar to parallel imports.
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Having an official refurbished program in our market would certainly help consumers avoid dodgy units, sellers and warranty terms but on another hand, it could also potentially disrupt Samsung’s own mid-range devices. Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see how Samsung able to strengthen its market share using the refurbished program if the Korean company decided to go through with it.
(Source: Reuters)
