The news in numbers

NUMBER OF OLD PHONES LYING UNUSED IN AUSSIE HOMES AS ‘BACKUPS’.

It’s no secret that us Aussies like phone upgrades, but what happens to our old handsets when they’re still working? A survey has found that about a third of them are kept for emergencies or as backups (around 10 million in total) and another 24% are passed on to friends and family as hand-me-downs. A further 18% are recycled, while the remainder are sold, with the younger generations (X and Y) more likely to look to turning a profit on old mobiles than Baby Boomers.