ATRenew, which operates China's largest online trading platform for pre-owned consumer electronic devices, is poised to benefit from Beijing's subsidy programme for consumer goods to boost flagging consumption.
ATRenew and e-commerce partner and stakeholder JD.com launched promotions to coincide with the Lunar New Year holiday, said Jeremy Ji Zixiao, general manager of international business and head of strategy and investor relations.
"We will work together with our major shareholder JD.com to provide attractive product offerings and additional incentives for consumers to take advantage of the opportunity," he said, without elaborating.
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From January 20, Beijing began offering a subsidy of 15 per cent for consumers buying new smartphones, tablets and smartwatches worth up to 6,000 yuan (US$828), with a cap of 500 yuan per item per category. The scheme is part of a nationwide trade-in programme launched last year to boost consumption and support the manufacturing industry.
Jeremy Ji,Zixiao, general manager of international business and head of strategy and investor relations at ATRenew. Photo: Xiaomei Chen alt=Jeremy Ji,Zixiao, general manager of international business and head of strategy and investor relations at ATRenew. Photo: Xiaomei Chen>
Chinese consumers, concerned about employment and wage prospects amid a slowing economy, have tightened their purse strings. As a result, China's real consumption growth is expected to hover around 3.8 per cent in 2025-26, according to a UBS report on January 20. Consumption grew by 5.5 per cent in 2019 and 6.2 per cent in 2018 before the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
Ji said he expected Beijing to maintain the scheme for the entire year in a bid to boost consumption, which would spur its collection and trading volume.
Shanghai-based ATRenew's business could benefit from consumers' propensity to buy used devices amid a multi-year economic slowdown, said Michael Kim, an analyst at Zacks Small-Cap Research.
"[As] average prices for new phones continue to trend higher [it will] stimulate demand for pre-owned devices," he said.
ATRenew had about 1,800 self-operated and jointly operated stores in more than 260 cities across the nation at the end of last year. It aims to boost the number of stores to 5,000 by 2027 and employ 5,000 workers to provide on-site device quality inspection, data cleaning, pickup services and trade-in prices.
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ATRenew's competitors include Beijing-based used-goods trading platform Zhuanzhuan.
ATRenew exclusively uses JD.com for trade-ins of electronic consumer products, Ji said. Nearly 3 million transactions took place on its platform in the first nine months of last year, exceeding transactions in 2023, he added.
ATRenew is also one of two partners for Apple's iPhone trade-in business on the mainland.
Handsets accounted for 70 per cent of its volume, compared with 15 per cent for laptops, 7 per cent for tablets and 8 per cent for other devices such as drones and game consoles.
Based on the carbon-footprint data provided by electronics makers and calculations by a consultancy hired by ATRenew, the company contributed to saving about 400,000 tonnes of carbon-dioxide emissions last year via reduced demand for new materials, manufacturing and logistics activities, Ji said.
ATRenew also operates eight centres to serve offline trade-in merchants.
"Many of them lack efficient and reliable quality-inspection and price-quotation capabilities," Ji said, noting that the market in China is highly fragmented and has hundreds of thousands of traders. "With our inspection robots, big-data-driven price quotation capabilities and refurbishment, logistics and financing services, we can help them shorten their trading cycle."
ATRenew operates warehouses, sales and administrative offices in Hong Kong and Malaysia, from where the company runs its international operations, although these account for less than 10 per cent of its total revenue.
"We will consider establishing similar set-ups in more markets as our business expands, but Hong Kong, with its well-developed used electronic products trading ecosystem, will still be our hub for international business development," Ji said.
ATRenew posted a profit of 17.9 million yuan in the third quarter of last year, its first since going public in New York in 2021.
The company is expected to report a net profit of 56 million yuan for the fourth quarter and a net loss of 35.9 million yuan for the full year, according to an estimate by analysts polled by Bloomberg.
This year, net profit is forecast to rise to 203 million yuan on revenue of 20 billion yuan.
This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2025 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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