Online trader targets second-hand phones, laptops

Yueyi Network, a Shanghai-based online trader of second-hand mobile phones and laptops, plans to inject more than $10 million into its three-year business expansion strategy.

"Funds will be used to establish a nationwide trading network to push forward the business," said Sun Wenjun, founder and chief executive officer of the Shanghai Yueyi Network Co Ltd, on Monday.

It has joined hands, by signing strategic cooperation agreements, with five partners; China Resource Vanguard, PC Mall, Everbright Telecommunication, Wal-Mart and D.phone.

"Their outlets nationwide will be a great contribution to our business network," said Sun.

He broke the three-year strategy down into three parts; extending business into the East China region, then into key cities and finally into the second-tier and third-tier cities.

The firm started the online business by setting up www.aihuishou.com three years ago with a focus placed on the Shanghai market.

"More than 10 million yuan ($1.63 million) has been injected into the initial business," and strenuous efforts have made the business successful, said Chen Xuefeng, founder and chief technology officer of the company.

Yueyi Network is practicing a consumer-to-business e-commerce model, in which users first send details of their scrapped mobile phones or laptops to purchasing firms through the website and then get a price feedback in 10 minutes. If they agree on the deal, the website will send employees to collect the articles and pay the users.

A survey from the China Mobile Communication Corp shows that China has about 900 million second-hand mobile phones no longer in use, indicating a great market for the business.

In addition, the country also has at least 5 million TV sets, 4 million refrigerators, 5 million washing machines and 5 million computers to be scrapped every year, leaving about 2.3 million tons of electronic waste behind, a big source of pollution, according to www.chinaenvironment,com.

Shanghai now trades about 100,000 used mobile phones every day. "If 10 percent goes to www.aihuishou.com, the business will be great," said Chen.

He said these used e-articles can be dealt with in three ways. Some high-valued ones can be sold for reuse, some should be recovered before selling to customers and some will be sold to collection depots for recycling.

"A kilogram of scrapped mobile phones can recycle $22.2 worth of precious and rare metals, creating profits as well as reducing pollution," he said.

Yueyi Network will create revenue of about 80 million yuan this year, which will be expected to jump up to 200 million yuan next year, Sun said.

"But the revenue is still very low compared with the huge market that is forecast to have about 10 billion yuan worth of scrapped electronic articles," he said.

He expects the share the company now has in the home market will rise from less than five percent to more than 10 after three years.

"Thus, we have the possibility to list the company in the United States for annual profits of $1 billion," Sun said.