BlackBerry, Android secondhand trade-ins spike at iPhone 4S launch

A popular site for selling second hand smartphones has reported an 80 percent increase in used BlackBerry phones and a 72 percent increase in Android trade-ins during the launch week of Apple's iPhone 4S.

According to a report by CNET, second hand gadget buyer Gazelle reported a huge influx of RIM BlackBerry trade-ins over the last week, coinciding with both the extended global outage of RIM's messaging service and the launch of iPhone 4S.

Gazelle's Anthony Scarsella said the spike in unwanted RIM devices is "easily the highest volume of BlackBerry trades ever seen, period," while noting that the 80 percent increase occured over already record highs earlier this month.

"In the grand scheme of BlackBerry growth over the past month, it can be pretty much entirely attributed to the launch of the iPhone 4S," he added.

Scarsella also noted a 72 percent increase in Android trade-ins over the same period, the majority of which have been tied to Sprint, which first began carrying Apple's iPhone line at the launch of the iPhone 4S. Sprint also now carries the $99 8GB CDMA iPhone 4.

CNET noted that Sprint has also recently announced newer Android models, including the Motorola Droid Razr and Samsung's Galaxy Nexus, and speculated that its "users may also be planning ahead" for those launches.

However, neither of those new phones are actually available yet, making it unlikely that Sprint's subscribers would trade in their existing Android phone while waiting for Sprint to announce when the new models might become available.

Sprint itself has reported new sales records set by its iPhone 4S launch, described the iPhone as being a top reason it was losing customers to AT&T and Verizon, and has invested a reported $20 billion in guaranteed sales of 30.5 million iPhones through 2014.

In addition to Android and RIM switchers, Gazelle has also noted trade-ins of 65,000 iPhones since it began buying second hand models, and noted that used iPhones have been traded in every 15 seconds to lock in buyback prices since the iPhone 4S was announced.