The online trend of trading used and new mobile handsets in Pakistan has surged to an impressive level as its value is estimated at Rs. 3.75 billion every month only at a single leading classified platform.
According to an analytical report released by OLX Pakistan, more than 12,000 ads are posted daily from all over the country in the mobile category alone.
Out of all the advertisements of mobile handsets posted on OLX, 77% of them are sold as sellers get at least 4 or more buyer replies on their ads on average. Around 23% of the ads posted in the mobile category are listed as new whereas the rest of the trading is done through online platforms for used or reconditioned mobile handsets.
Monthly trading of over Rs. 3 billion is estimated as there is a room of negotiation between the sellers and buyers of the mobile phone against the tagged prices of mobile phones mainly smartphones.
Besides, there are other online and social media platforms that could suggest that the trade value of the mobile phone handsets including new and used are more than the stated numbers which grew mainly during the lockdown due to closure of retail markets.
Popular Brands of Mobile Phones
Samsung is the top brand traded on OLX with 2,591 ads posted daily, followed closely by Apple with around 2,323 daily listings. Huawei sees 1,254 ads posted every day compared to Oppo’s 1,144 ads and Vivo’s 694 ads.
The popularity of mobile brands between buyers and sellers differ, where most ads are listed for Samsung followed by Apple, the buyers, however, have shown a preference for the former. Huawei and OPPO also have switched positions in terms of popularity amongst buyers. Vivo, on the other hand, has maintained its position as the 5th most popular brand amongst buyers and sellers both.
The term Samsung was searched the most in a month with 1.2 million searches on the platform, followed by OPPO 548,000, Vivo 360,000, Huawei 293,000, and Apple 82,000. However, the term iPhone was searched 1.7 million times in a month which is a lot more than Samsung’s 1.2 million, this could be since users tend to use the model name when searching for an iPhone rather than the brand’s name, the report added.
According to a report, users visit OLX through different kinds of search terms to navigate through the website. Around 40 million searches are conducted by the OLX user on the platform, out of which 25% occur in the mobile category alone.
The mobile category on OLX alone serves an average of 175 million impressions, with a monthly reach of 2.5 million users. Nearly, 70% of those users are male while the remaining 30% are female who on average spend 6.5 minutes browsing the mobiles category.
Top Cities For Online Trading of Mobile Phones
The data shows that Lahore is the top city in terms of mobile trading at OLX. Ads posted on the platform are viewed by over 100,000 buyers. Similar to the trend that is presented by daily listings, Lahore boasts the most buyers visiting the platform i.e 18,381 buyers, followed by Karachi with its 18,086 buyers. Other cities with major traders of used and new mobile handsets included Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Peshawar, and Islamabad.
The majority of the numbers shared in this report cover average user activity over the past few months. Some of these numbers change on a monthly or even daily basis such as impression served or popular search terms, others will remain the same with minor changes over a few months.
OLX Pakistan is an online classifieds marketplace providing access to affordable devices to a large population.
