Recycling biz reckons AI features are destroying smartphone resale values

Galaxy S25 sheds 63% in 12 months as reseller questions LLM emphasis

Smartphone makers love touting AI, but the technology may be quietly destroying resale values.

According to UK used device website Compare and Recycle, Samsung's Galaxy S25 lost 63 percent of its resale value after 12 months, reversing a multi-year trend of Samsung flagships depreciating more slowly with each generation. The culprit, Compare and Recycle believes, is AI.

"The Galaxy S24 was the first Samsung model to have Galaxy AI features, said chief product officer Lee Elliott. S"ince then, Samsung has heavily marketed the on-device and cloud-based AI tools of the range, such as live translation, generative photo editing, and AI search."

He argues that positioning AI as a core selling point rather than background functionality has backfired badly.

Gartner research director Ranjit Atwal agrees the dynamic plays out differently across markets.

"Samsung's AI premium holds up with early adopters but fails in the refurbished market, where mid-range buyers prioritize value over AI branding," he told The Register.

"Beyond the price barrier, there is a secondary issue of trust: users are comfortable with AI for specific tasks like photo editing, but remain apprehensive about its more intrusive, wide-scale applications."

Not everyone is convinced AI is the problem.

CCS Insight's Ben Wood points out that heavy AI integration is now standard across premium devices. He says consumers can't really avoid it. A recent CCS Insight survey found 47 percent of buyers would actually pay more for a phone with AI features, though this applied to new purchases, not secondhand ones.

"Although Samsung has doubled down on AI as a lead feature on its Galaxy devices, this is a common trend across Android smartphone makers, particularly in their premium devices. These days, it is hard for consumers to find premium devices that don't have a significant AI angle in the market and on-device experience," Wood told The Reg.

Samsung is now marketing its forthcoming S26 as an "AI phone" rather than a smartphone — a framing Elliott thinks is commercially risky as he suspects the public tide may have turned on AI.

"Research shows that just 42 percent of people in the UK are willing to trust AI. Contrarily, the vast majority of people are concerned about the negative outcomes of AI, and 80 percent believe regulation is required." ®