Apple adds four LG handsets to its trade in program

Back in April, LG announced that it was exiting the mobile phone business on July 31st. And while Apple seemingly doesn't need any help when it comes to unloading iPhone 12 series units (over 100 million handsets were sold in the first seven months for the best sales rate since the the iPhone 6 line in 2014), Apple will attempt to get LG phone owners to switch to iPhone or other Apple products.

Apple has added four LG smartphone models to the iPhone trade-in page. The four models added include 2020's LG V60 ThinQ 5G giving iPhone buyers a gift card valued up to $180 in a trade. The 2019 LG V50 ThinQ 5G can be traded in for a gift card valued up to $125 in a trade. The previous year's LG V40 ThinQ can be traded for a gift card valued up to $65, and 2019's LG G8 ThinQ can be traded in for a gift card worth as much as $70.

To start the trade-in process, visit Apple's trade in web site and click on the smartphone icon from among the device choices on the bottom of the page. You'll then see a list of phone manufacturers and you'll want to select the one who made the phone you plan on trading in. Those include phones made by Apple, BlackBerry, Google, HTC, Huawei, LG, Nokia, oppo
OnePlus, Samsung, Sony, vivo, Xiaomi, and other brands.

After you click on the brand of the device being traded, some questions will need to be answered. For example, is the device being traded in considered to be in good condition? If the answer is no, do the buttons work? Is the phone's body in good shape? After all of the questions are answered, Apple will reveal how money it is willing to value the trade at. The owner of the trade will then send Apple his/her email address and street address and will be sent an envelope so that the  phone owner can send his trade to Apple.

Once Apple receives the phone being traded in, it will determine whether its condition matches what the owner claimed it is. If so, Apple will send the gift card to the consumer via email and it can be used toward the purchase of any Apple product. Instead of posting an estimated trade value for the phone, any model not found on the site can be recycled by Apple.

The company says, "You may be done with your device, but chances are it still has more to give. If it’s in good shape, we’ll help it go to a new owner, diverting electronic waste from landfills. If not, we’ll send it to our recycling partner, so we can save more precious materials and take less from the earth. And if it’s an iPhone, it could even go to Daisy, our disassembly robot that can efficiently recover the resources inside."

LG decided to close its smartphone business after it was unable to catch up and gain some ground against top Android manufacturers like Samsung. LG had 10% of the U.S. smartphone market last year, and 2% of the global market in 2020. The company delivered only 23 million handsets last year compared to the 256 million that market leader Samsung shipped in 2020.

LG tried to sell its smartphone business to Vingroupo based in Vietnam, but the two firms could not agree to a deal leaving the South Korean manufacturer with only one solution and that is to shutter the business.