Nigerians Go For Phone Swap As Economy Bites Harder

Phone Swap is fast gaining popularity in Nigeria as the price of goods and services continue to soar, making it difficult to purchase new phones.

Nigerians, who formally loved using two to three expensive phones, have reduced their options to one amidst the hardship.

According to investigations by Economy & Lifestyle, the situation of survival has left people with no choice but swap their old phones for new ones, where there is a need for a change.

Explaining how it is done, Evans Ofili, a manager at a phone and electronic gadget store in Igando, said: “The process of phone swapping is not tedious. All a customer needs to do is bring an old phone and the receipt of purchase and a valid means of identification.

” We assess the phone by testing the battery power and other parts to know its present value. Then the customer is to add a little amount of money to get his choice phone.

“For instance, if his phone of choice is worth N100,000 and the value of his old phone is N50,000. He is to pay N50,000 in addition to the old phone to get the new one.”

He further revealed that phone swapping has been in existence but was not practiced intensively by Nigerians.

“Old phones are usually given out to their loved ones after buying a new one. People no longer buy new phones nowadays. What they do now is phone swapping.

“We also do this to increase sales as people are now very interested in feeding, and other things come after.

“The old phones are repaired and swapped with other phones too”, Ofili said.

Other Investigations have  revealed that the current prices of most popular phone brands have increased.

The price of phones of brands like Samsung, Infinix, Nokia, Techno, Microsoft, Xiaomi Redmi and Itel phones with smaller gigabytes of Read Only Memory (ROM) and Read Access Memory (RAM) with low or medium battery power ranges from N70,000 to N90,000.

Those with higher ROM and RAM goes for N150,000 above which were sold at N70,000 before.

Mrs. Demilade Raymond, a salary earner, said she swapped her Techno pop 5 for a higher grade last month.

“My old phone, Techno Pop 5 , had little space. Most times it hangs whenever I don’t relieve it from large documents it stores.

“I have been using the phone for almost three years.

“The manager at the phone store where I did the swapping said the phone series was highly sought after by some people.

“He valued the phone at N30,000. I was asked to add N70,999 to get the new model of my choice.

“At least I have a new phone now and spend less.”

With additional reports from Vanguard

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