New Carousell service allows users to sell mobile phones within 24 hours

MANILA, Philippines — Buy-and-sell platform Carousell has announced plans to make the process of buying and selling mobile phones more convenient as it launched its artificial intelligence-supported end-to-end service Sell to Carousell starting in Singapore.

The new solution allows Carousell users to sell their new and old mobile phones from the comfort of their homes and directly to Carousell within just one day. They can also sell their secondhand phones to the company by dropping off the gadgets at any iStudio outlet, an Apple premium reseller in Singapore.

The service was made possible through the company's recent acquisition of the Indonesian recommerce platform Laku6. The new solution features Laku6’s proprietary AI-first diagnostics technology, enabling Carousell to inspect the condition of secondhand mobile phones within two minutes and produce pricing.

People who want to use Sell to Carousell need to provide information about their phone’s condition by filling out a form on the Carousell app or website. The company will then generate an estimated quote and consumers can encash their phones in just one hour.

Laku6’s AI technology can remotely inspect a phone’s hardware and software functionalities, including visible screen damage. So far, the remote diagnostics solution has inspected and transacted over half a million mobile phones and served over 16,000 mobile phone sellers.

Laku6 acquisition

Since the integration of Laku6, Carousell has seen a 55% growth in the past half year in mobile phone transactions, Carousell Group CEO and Co-Founder Quek Siu Rui said.

Carousell expects the partnership with Laku6 to position the group as the market leader in electronics recommerce across the Greater Southeast Asia region as the industry is slated to grow over 2.5X to USD 18.6 billion by 2026, according to RedSeer Strategy Consultants.

Carousell is one of the largest and fastest growing buy-and-sell app in the world, having more than 6 million listings in the Philippine market.

"We’re excited about the opportunity for new services such as Sell to Carousell in the region, and are optimistic about its pilot in Singapore and its subsequent development," a spokesperson from the company told Philstar.com in a statement.