Apple prepping expansion of iPhone trade-in program to UK, Europe stores

Update October 14th: It’s here.

In August, Apple launched an iPhone trade-in program for its United States-based retail stores. The promotion is part of Tim Cook’s grand plan to dramatically increase iPhone sales inside of his own stores. Interestingly, the iPhone “Reuse and Recycle” trade-in program has been absent from Apple Stores outside of the United States even though approximately 1/3 of the company’s stores exist outside of the U.S.

That will soon change, according to a reliable source. This person says that Apple has begun preparing training materials for its United Kingdom retail staff on the Apple Store iPhone trade-in-program and that the initiative will launch in the UK in the coming months. Apple has begun training a small number of UK-based stores on the program, but it will take the company a few weeks to rollout the training across the region…

Second only to the United States, the United Kingdom is the country with the most official Apple Retail Stores. It is also a country most commonly found in Apple’s initial launch timeline for new products. The source added that Apple plans to soon begin training in countries in Europe other than the UK, but it seems that the UK launch could come before any other international countries gain the trade-in ability.

Like in the United States, BrightStar will handle the trade-in program. Devices will be processed for recycling in the United Kingdom. As we first described in August, the iPhone trade-in-program is simple: a customer that wants to buy a new iPhone brings their older iPhone to the store, the phone will be given a trade-in price based on hardware damage, water damage, and screen quality, and then the value will be applied via a store gift card to the purchase of a new iPhone.

Pricing for iPhone trade-ins via Apple’s program has been competitive, but not as strong as offerings from other services. However, it seems that the existence of Apple’s program at the time of sale in-store is an unbeatable convenience factor.