Depreciation is something most car buyers study. The least depreciating cars retain more of your investment over a number of years and, often, these are the vehicles that are more expensive and less subject to discounts at the time of purchase. Those who look only at the price tag are often the ones who lose out big time.
Buyers of smartphones and computers are far less likely to even think about depreciation. In the past they have been used to writing off a device over a few years and sticking it at the bottom of some cupboard.
Yet resale value is an important part of the Apple ownership experience. Most Apple products, in particular iPhones, iPads and MacBook Airs, hold their value infinitely better than the competition. When this is taken into account a MacBook Air costing $900 is probably cheaper in the long run than a netbook at half the price.
This report highlighted in Cult of Mac just adds more detail to something that all savvy Apple owners know: iOS devices are the Porsches of the smartphone world. There is an active market for second- and third-hand phones that keeps values high. As I attempted to highlight yesterday in relation to Amazon’s latest three-Kindles-for-one-iPad advertising, what appears to be cheapest is not always the most sensible buy. Here is what Cult of Mac says:
The results dramatically show iPhones holding notbly more resale value. After 18 months, an iPhone will be worth 53% of its initial price while Android and BlackBerry devices will only be worth an average of 42% and 41% respectively.
The source report, from Priceonomics.com fleshes out the detail, adding:
The empirical facts are in, and the iPhone is wiping the floor with Android and BlackBerry in terms of resale value.