Huaqiangbei – Hidden Risks of Buying Mobile Phones from Huaqiangbei

Huaqiangbei, enjoying a notorious name for second-hand/refurbished mobile phones that are on sale at a small fraction of their original counterparts, is the assembling center for shanzhai phones in China or even around the world.

Just take a stroll down Huaqiangbei, your breath will be taken away with glittering arrays of iphones with much more wallet-friendly price tags, will you go for them? If you’ve ever bought mobile phones in Huaqiangbei at much lower price than their original counter parts, definitely you’re scammed into buying refurbished ones. You get what you pay. Here’s how it works. Some cunning suppliers bought used iphones with broken screen at much lower price, then bought iphone back shells without the IMEI code, later change the broken screen into a new one including new buttons and proximity light sensor so it looks like new. Then they will print the IMEI code into the back shell and pack with earphone, etc the same way like the original ones.

If you are buying mobile phones from Huaqiangbei, watch out that you don’t pay the original price for a counterfeit one especially there are so many versions of mobile phones based on districts, etc., Hongkong version, Japanese, US, Korea, Taiwan, etc.

There’re mainly two kinds of iPhones in Huaqiangbei mobile phone markets.

1. Trade-in phones via Apple Care program

Some suppliers sell this kind of iphones at the same price with the brand new ones. A simple way to tell them apart is the IMEI code starts with N while brand new ones start with M.

2. Refurbished phones

To maximize profits some suppliers would use some cheap knockoffs to take place of the original parts. For example, the original screen of iphone is sold at 400 rmb while wholesale refurbished iphones in China costs only 200 rmb per unit.