iphone unlocking difficulty increases second-hand trader hit

NetEase technology News November 14, according to foreign media reports, the United States operator At&t in October this year changed the network of mobile phone unlocking policy, including the iphone, the sale of second-hand mobile phones has been affected by the sale of second-hand iphone in China, the company suffered a heavy blow. A company that buys second-hand American handsets and sells them to China says it has no further business since early October. The company suddenly found it impossible to unlock the iphone in a large number of at&t nets, so that the phones could not be used in other communication networks. The company can only wound up and close the office, its founder Louise Ais Chuna (Louis Ashner) said, "The whole market is gone, we are ready to close the door." "The company's annual turnover is close to 1 million dollars," he said. In the United States, smartphones are often "locked up" to operate on a network of operators to ensure that consumers perform the package agreements they buy. If you want to sell these used phones in other markets, you must unlock this lock. According to comscore, the number of iphones sold by At&t accounted for 48% of iphone sales in the United States. And over the years, the second-hand iphone in At&t has been worth more than any other version of the iphone because it supports GSM networks and can be used in more carriers. Industry insiders said that at&t since last month, suddenly increased understanding of the difficulty of locking their own mobile phones. At&t A spokesman said the company did not change the locking policy for individual users, but he did not discuss the bulk unlocking behavior of second-hand sellers. A spokeswoman for Apple declined to comment. The source said that in mid-October, At&t did terminate the way the phone was unlocked and asked the user to unlock it online. When unlocking online, users must enter the four digits of their social security number. Insiders of second-hand mobile phone sales point out that after a massive unlock failure, within one months, unlocking a at&t iphone has soared from 1 to 2 dollars per unit to $100 trillion. The second-hand mobile phone market is still exploding, and Apple, at&t and other companies have entered the market this year in the hope that it will be quicker to push users to newer models. Abinadab）