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New Delhi, 22 June 2026Whenever it comes to buying a new smartphone, most of the people think of buying a new phone by selling their old handset or taking advantage of the exchange offer. The market of second hand smartphones in India is very big and many companies also offer attractive offers. But a recent research has revealed a shocking fact. Most Indians prefer to keep their old smartphones at home instead of selling or exchanging them. The reason behind this is not excessive attachment towards the phone, but there is a big fear of data leaking and privacy being snatched.

This reality of India’s second hand smartphone market has come to light in a recent survey conducted by mobile reselling platform ‘Cashify’. According to this survey conducted on approximately 8000 people, 69 percent of Indians do not sell their old phones just because they fear their privacy being violated. Statistics show that 56.6 percent people have sold or exchanged their phones at some time, which shows that the old phone market has become a mainstream part, but still 74 percent customers have a fear that their personal data can be misused after selling the phone.

• Smartphones contain years of data, platforms will have to take responsibility

Regarding this changing mindset of customers, Nakul Kumar, co-founder of Keshify, said that people’s participation and awareness in the smartphone resale market is definitely increasing, but the responsibility of data security is still left entirely on the customers. Nowadays, smartphones store years of people’s personal, financial and identity data. At a time when the size of the resale market is increasing, it is not appropriate to consider data security as the sole responsibility of the customer. Organized platforms and systems associated with this sector will have to make data security their primary and fundamental responsibility.

One of the most promising aspects of this survey is that now privacy has become more important for Indian consumers than the price of the old phone. When people choose a platform to sell their smartphones, 45.3 percent consider data privacy and security to be the most important factor. In comparison, only 29.5 percent people give priority to the value of the phone i.e. getting more money. This change shows that customers are no longer just chasing more money, but are also thinking seriously about the security of their personal data after handing over the phone.

• Huge surge in demand for ‘Data Deletion Certificate’

Amidst this concern about data security, the demand for ‘Data Deletion Certificate’ is increasing in the market. According to the survey, 68.6 percent people trust resale platforms more that provide authenticated and secure data deletion. Apart from this, 83.3 percent people say that it is very important to get a data deletion certificate while selling a smartphone. The interesting thing is that 50.8 percent people are ready to pay additional charges to guarantee secure data deletion. However, experts believe that data security is not an optional feature, but should be an obligation of the reselling platform.

Most people believe that by doing a factory reset before selling the phone, all the data is cleared, but the reality is different. 83.3 percent of the people surveyed admitted that they do a factory reset before selling the phone, but 41.1 percent of them also know that just doing a factory reset does not erase the data forever. Surprisingly, 31 percent people have also claimed that they have been successful in recovering deleted data from a phone in the past.

According to Mandeep Manocha, co-founder and CEO of Cashify, most people do not understand the difference between deleting data, doing a factory reset, and securely erasing data forever. By doing a factory reset, the files and apps from the phone stop being visible normally, but the original data in the storage is not completely destroyed. It can be recovered with the help of special recovery tools. In contrast, a proven and secure data deletion process overwrites the information in storage with new information, making it impossible to recover old data.