VANTA (FINLAND). To get to Vantaa it takes just under half an hour from Helsinki. It is a town fifteen kilometers north of the capital. There isn’t much to see apart from a gray building built in the 1990s in the suburbs. It is the Myyrmanni shopping center and on the ground floor it houses an ATM out of the ordinary and not only for its imposing size: it sells and buys used smartphones. It was installed by Swappie, a Finnish startup at the top of the annual ranking of Financial Times, “Europe’s Fastest Growing Companies”, thanks to a growth of 477%. All by offering refurbished iPhones and guaranteeing quality as few others have evidently been able to do. Collaborating with the Israeli Cellomat, he has now developed this ATM where you can buy a used Apple phone but also sell your own.
“Currently only about 20% of appliances are recycled,” he says Elena Garbujo, at the head of Swappie Italia, who accompanied us to the Cellomat in Vantaa. “Yet, the majority of smartphone emissions, we are talking about 83%, come from production, transport and the first year of use. Making it easier to buy refurbished and sell used ones is a step towards growth. the circular economy “.
Technology
Behind the success of Swappie, the company that recycles iPhone
by Jaime D’Alessandro
Buying is a matter of minutes. You choose the model and the condition among those present and pay by credit card. Selling, on the other hand, is another story as it takes more time, but being able to do so is already a novelty. In addition to providing a bank account, the Imei identification code must be entered so that the machine can verify that it is not a stolen smartphone. It is also necessary to choose among the different options the one that best describes the general condition of the phone, unlock the screen and insert the smartphone in the slot of the ATM to get an estimate. The machine operates connected to Cellomat’s cloud services which uses a series of algorithms to establish the condition of the object through image analysis. The day after the estimate will then be confirmed by Swappie employees or corrected by reducing it as well as increasing it according to the actual state of the iPhone. If you agree, you get the money or a voucher to buy another one, otherwise you can get your phone back. Of refurbished models it can hold 200 and there is room for another 200 sold by customers.
“It also accepts some old Nokia models for which you receive small amounts or simply the guarantee that they will be recycled in the correct way“, continues Elena Garbujo.” Here in Cellomat Finland there are two others, one in Turku and the other in Tampere. It is a pilot project, if it gives the desired results we will also put several out of Finland “.
In Italy, therefore, in all likelihood, being the country in which the company was founded by the thirty-year-olds Jiri Heinonen e Sami Marttinen, the latter will be a guest of the Italian Tech Week in Turin, it was the most successful. In the world of vending machines there are about 20 million, one of these is in Italy, and every day they register 140 million purchases of soft drinks, coffee, sandwiches. Most are built here by us, but this is a side note. In fact, they are commonly used devices that for some time have also begun to offer electronics, from telephone cables to power banks. Cellomat is an evolved form of vending machine, linked to the booming market for refurbished devices and managed by one of the most reliable companies.
The fundamental difference of Swappie compared to other companies engaged in the same field is in fact in the reliability and customer service. Purchased iPhones, before being reissued for sale, are screened through 52 different steps to get an exact picture of the situation and repaired if necessary. Sami Marttinen came up with the idea after taking a scam trying to buy a used iPhone online in the US and soon realized that there was no one in this area who really guaranteed buyers. And now he tries to propose his formula also through smartphone ATMs. Idea is interesting, especially if one day it will be expanded to sell and accept all the other electronic devices that have now invaded our homes.