Nothing Grey About It: For Cashify, The Future Is Circular

by · Inc42

SUMMARY

  • IPO-bound Cashify is formalising India’s massive grey market for used smartphones by building a full-stack model focused on trust, quality control, and end-to-end ownership.
  • OEM partnerships and certified refurbishment are helping Cashify solve the trust deficit while securing better supply and creating a competitive moat over informal players and marketplaces.
  • Rising premium demand, higher ASPs, and improving repeat usage are driving growth, positioning Cashify to scale revenues and profitability ahead of its planned IPO.
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There is a particular kind of audacity required to walk into a market already owned by everyone and no one at once. India’s used smartphone trade, worth tens of thousands of crores and touching millions of lives, had for decades operated in the comfortable shadows of the grey market. 

Transactions happened often on street corners in Nehru Place, in cramped shops in Palika Bazaar, between strangers on WhatsApp groups and across counters where neither receipt nor warranty was ever a part of the deal. Nobody regulated it. Nobody trusted it completely. And yet, it worked in the way that all informal economies work, by filling a void that the formal world had neglected.

This was the world, a decade ago, into which walked Cashify. 

Founded by Mandeep Manocha, Nakul Kumar and Amit Sethi in 2013, Cashify started out with a simple but radical idea: what if buying a used smartphone could feel like buying a new one? 

At the time, this space was dominated by murky, trust-deficient second-hand sellers, but the startup wanted to replace this with something transparent, standardised, and backed by a warranty.

The idea was not new globally. Companies like Back Market in Europe, Swappa in the US have been pioneers in the electronic ‘recommerce’ space, but executing the model in India, with its sprawling informal supply chains, price-sensitive consumers, and deep-rooted distrust of “used” goods, was a different challenge entirely.

Today, Cashify stands on the cusp of proving that the bet was right.

With revenue crossing ₹1,000 Cr and the company claiming profitability in FY26, Cashify is planning to file for an IPO that could value it between ₹1,500 Cr and ₹1,800 Cr. 

The market itself has changed over the past 13 years. In fact, Manocha claims that the maturity in just the last three years is staggering. 

The average selling price for used smartphones on Cashify has more than doubled from ₹10,000 in 2023 to ₹23,000 today. Apple iPhones now account for nearly two-thirds of its refurbished smartphone sales.

Notably, it has managed to grow revenue by 20% YoY even as the broader organised refurbished smartphone category saw a slowdown.

“The refurbished market in India has always been large — what’s changing now is the shift from informal to organised. A significant share of transactions already happen in the secondary market, but through unstructured channels. With trust, certification, and better consumer experience coming in, this is rapidly formalising,” Manocha told Inc42.

He says that while the organised refurbished market is still in single digits as a share of total smartphone sales, it will grow by double digits over the next 3–5 years, driven by premiumisation and rising comfort with quality-certified refurbished devices. 

Solving The Grey Market Problem 

A decade ago, Cashify was the sole player in India’s huge used electronics gray market.

It was a market defined by a large volume of transactions with narrow margins comprising wholesalers, local traders, street-level resellers, and informal aggregators.

For the consumer entering this world, the experience has always been a gamble. The device was often not what it appeared to be. 

“A replaced aftermarket component was being passed off as an original part, a battery depleted to 60% health was being presented as new, or a device with an unknown past, even stolen phones, were being hawked in the market,” the founder recalled. 

There was no warranty. There was often no bill. And once money changed hands, there was rarely any recourse.

The grey market’s greatest asset was also its greatest liability. It ran entirely on personal relationships and localised trust rather than systemic guarantees. This worked at scale because the volume of transactions was enormous.

For the record, India is the third largest second-hand smartphone market in the world with yearly growth at 10% recorded in 2024, surpassing the sales growth of new smartphones. 

Cashify recognised this early. Instead of trying to displace the grey market, it built on top of it.