The chart people imagine is a smooth downward slope. The reality looks more like a staircase built by someone in a hurry — long flat stretches interrupted by sudden drops, most of them landing on dates you could have marked in a calendar a year in advance.
Understanding where the steps are is worth more than any general claim about which brand holds value. If you know when the next drop lands, you know whether to sell this month or wait.
Note on figures: the patterns below come from observing listing and sale behaviour, not from a published dataset. Treat them as the shape of the market rather than as precise numbers, and check current prices for your specific model.
Depreciation happens in steps, and here’s where they are
Step one: the first few weeks. A phone loses its “new” status the moment it’s opened. Open-box units sell below retail immediately, even when they’ve never been switched on.
Step two: the first successor announcement. The largest single drop for most models. Note that it’s the announcement, not the release — the market reprices the moment a replacement exists, weeks before anyone can buy one.
Step three: roughly a year in. Supply climbs as annual upgraders sell, and the phone is now two generations from current.
Step four: each subsequent announcement. Smaller steps, but they keep coming, and they compound.
Step five: the support cliff. When a model approaches the end of its security update window, informed buyers stop considering it and the price falls off a shelf. This step is getting more pronounced as buyers become more aware of update policies.
Between steps, prices are remarkably stable. A phone sitting in a flat stretch loses very little over a couple of months, which is why “sell it eventually” is a worse strategy than it feels — you’re not losing slowly, you’re waiting for the next cliff.
Why iPhones have historically held value better
Not brand loyalty, or not only that. Four structural reasons.
A narrow, legible lineup. A handful of models per year, named predictably. A buyer looking for a specific iPhone knows exactly what they want, and that clarity supports pricing.
Long software support. Apple publishes no formal policy, but iPhones have historically received major iOS releases for roughly five to six years. A long support tail keeps a phone saleable further into its life.
A deep used market. Enough buyers and sellers that prices are discovered efficiently and a listing finds a buyer quickly.
New-price discipline. Apple rarely discounts current models heavily, which keeps the ceiling above the used market intact. When new units get discounted aggressively, used prices are pulled down with them.
Why Android has depreciated faster, and why that’s changing
The traditional Android disadvantage came from the mirror image of those four points: crowded lineups with many similar models, heavy discounting on new units within months of launch, shorter support windows, and fragmented demand across dozens of brands.
The discounting one deserves emphasis. If a phone that launched at a given price is routinely available new at a substantial discount six months later, no used listing can hold above that. The used market has a ceiling set by the cheapest new price, and Android manufacturers have historically set that ceiling low, fast.
Two things have shifted since 2024.
Support windows expanded dramatically. Google’s commitment of seven years on recent Pixel generations, matched by Samsung from the Galaxy S24 line onward, changes the arithmetic at the back end of a phone’s life. A device with four years of updates remaining at age three is a genuinely different asset from one with a year left.
Buyers started checking. The support window only supports resale value if buyers know about it. That awareness has grown, and it shows up in what people will pay for a three-year-old Pixel versus a three-year-old phone from a brand with a two-year policy.
My read: the gap between Apple and the top-tier Android lines has narrowed meaningfully, and it’s narrowest at the three-to-five-year mark, where the extended support windows do their work. The gap against second-tier Android brands hasn’t narrowed at all.
How the curves differ by tier
| Tier | Early depreciation | Late depreciation | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flagship, strong support | Steep in year one | Gentle after year two | Long update runway sustains demand |
| Flagship, short support | Steep in year one | Falls off near support end | Buyers exit as patches stop |
| Upper mid-range | Moderate throughout | Moderate | Less far to fall, steadier demand |
| Budget | Shallow in absolute terms | Reaches near-zero quickly | Little value to lose, short support |
| “Ultra” and largest models | Steepest of the flagships | Gentle | High launch price, narrower used demand |
The counterintuitive row is the last one. The most expensive phone in a lineup usually loses the most money in absolute terms, because it started highest and the used buyer pool for very large, very expensive devices is smaller.
What this means if you’re buying
Buy in a flat stretch, immediately after a step.
The best value window for a used flagship is roughly two to eight weeks after a new generation is announced, when the previous generation’s owners are all selling simultaneously and supply outruns demand. That’s the buyer’s moment, and it’s the seller’s worst one.
Then check the support runway before you commit, because the last step on the staircase is steep and you don’t want to be holding the phone when it arrives. Our buying guide for the upper-mid tier works through that calculation with specific models.
What this means if you’re selling
Sell in a flat stretch, before a step.
The practical version: if you know you’re upgrading in the autumn, sell in the summer. Use an old phone or a cheap one for a few weeks. The inconvenience is measured in days; the price difference isn’t.
And don’t let a phone sit unlisted. A device in a drawer is riding the same staircase as one in your pocket, without providing any of the benefit. Our guide to selling for the highest price covers the rest of the timing.
Working out where your own phone sits
Four steps, and you can do it in a few minutes.
Find the announcement dates for your model’s line over the last two years. Manufacturers keep to fairly consistent rhythms, so two years of history predicts the next one reasonably well.
Count how many announcements your phone has been through. Zero means you’re in the best selling position you’ll ever be in. Two or more and the steep part is behind you.
Look up the end of its security support window. Launch year plus the manufacturer’s published commitment. That’s the last cliff.
Check what the same model actually sold for in the last month, then look at what it sold for three months ago. The difference tells you whether you’re currently on a flat stretch or partway down a step.
That last comparison is the one people skip and the one that answers the practical question. A price that hasn’t moved in three months means you have time. A price that’s fallen noticeably means the step is in progress and waiting costs money.
Trade-in values follow a different curve
Worth knowing if you’re comparing routes.
Private sale prices track the market continuously — they move within days of an announcement. Trade-in values are set in advance and revised periodically, which produces a lag in both directions.
The practical consequence: in the days immediately after a successor is announced, trade-in quotes are sometimes temporarily better than the collapsing private market, because the quote hasn’t been revised yet. Then they get revised, usually downward and often sharply.
The opposite happens too. During a long flat stretch, private sale reliably beats trade-in by a wide margin, because trade-in pricing is built to be conservative.
If you’re deciding between the two, get a trade-in quote and compare it against completed private sales the same day. The gap varies enormously depending on where you are on the staircase, and the general advice that private sale always wins isn’t quite true in the week after a launch event.
The variables that bend the curve
Two phones of the same model don’t depreciate identically.
Repair history is the big one. A non-genuine display puts a phone on a permanently lower track, and it never recovers.
Battery health ages on its own schedule depending on how the phone was charged and how hot it ran.
Storage tier holds up differently — higher capacities tend to depreciate more slowly in percentage terms once a model is a few years old.
Condition matters, but less than the two above.
So “what’s a three-year-old model worth” has a wide answer, and the spread within a model is often larger than the difference between adjacent models.
What depreciation looks like from the inside
One reframing that changes how people think about upgrades.
The cost of owning a phone isn’t its price. It’s the price minus what you get back when you sell it, spread across the months you used it. A phone that costs more but holds value can easily work out cheaper per month than one that costs less and doesn’t.
That calculation also rewards selling promptly. Every month a replaced phone sits unlisted adds to the cost of the phone you already stopped using, for no benefit whatsoever.
And it explains why the support window matters so much in the current market. A phone with years of updates left has a floor under its resale value, because there’s still a buyer for it. A phone past its support window has almost no floor at all — the drop at that point isn’t gradual, and it’s the reason holding on “until it’s worth nothing” is usually a decision made by accident rather than on purpose.
Veelvoorkomende fouten om te vermijden
- Waiting for a good moment that never comes. The good moment is now, minus one announcement cycle.
- Assuming smooth decline. Prices sit still, then jump down. Position yourself accordingly.
- Buying the outgoing flagship the week before an announcement. Wait three weeks.
- Ignoring the support cliff when buying a cheap older phone. That’s why it’s cheap.
- Treating brand as destiny. A well-supported Android now holds up better than a poorly supported one from a “premium” brand.
- Comparing your phone to launch-day pricing. The market prices against today.
Veelgestelde vragen
Do iPhones really hold their value better than Androids?
Historically yes, and by a clear margin. The gap has narrowed against top-tier Android lines since manufacturers extended support windows to seven years, and remains wide against brands with short update policies.
When does a phone lose the most value?
In its first year, with the sharpest single drop occurring around the announcement of its successor rather than around the release.
How long should I keep a phone to get the best value from it?
If you want the best resale price, sell before the second successor announcement. If you want the best total cost of ownership, keep it until updates end and accept a low resale figure.
Does a case and screen protector slow depreciation?
They preserve cosmetic condition, which is a modest factor. They don’t affect battery health, repair history, or support runway, which matter more.
Why is the biggest model in a lineup often the worst value to buy new?
Highest launch price, smallest used buyer pool, so the largest absolute loss. As a used purchase two years later, the same characteristics make it good value.
Is a cheap phone with two years of updates left worth buying?
Only at a price that assumes you’ll replace it in two years. Divide the asking price by the years of support remaining and compare that figure across your options — it reorders most shortlists.
Look up when your phone’s line typically gets refreshed, then count backwards eight weeks. That’s your selling window, and it’s usually further away from your upgrade date than feels comfortable.
If you’re buying instead, browse what’s listed on ExploreFrag and check where each model sits on its staircase before you commit.
About the author
Emran Ahmed is the founder and CEO of ExploreFrag, a marketplace for buying and selling used phones and accessories across every brand. Watching listing prices move in steps around announcement dates is a large part of what he does with his week, and it’s why he stopped believing in the smooth-decline version of depreciation years ago.