On September 20, World Cleanup Day, AHS Recycle officially launched “Shanhai Wuhen” (Traceless Trails), its new public welfare program, extending its “REVIVE” initiative from urban communities to outdoor mountains and wilderness. By deploying solar-powered smart recycling kiosks along hiking routes, the program focuses on addressing the problem of uncontrolled outdoor wastes, and now covers 21 outdoor hiking routes in Beijing, Shenzhen and Hangzhou.

On September 21, AHS Recycle opened its “Trendy Toy-themed Store” in Shanghai, located at Jing’an Joy City, the city’s gathering place for anime and trendy toy culture. Building on its existing secondhand categories such as mobile phones and digital devices, the AHS store works with partners across categories to add trading cards, trendy toys, collectible figures and other categories, exploring a new offline format for secondhand trendy toy transactions.

In September, the National Development and Reform Commission, together with the Ministry of Finance, allocated RMB 62.5 billion, the fourth batch of 2026’s ultra-long-term special treasury bonds to local governments to support consumer goods trade-in programs. With this, the full-year RMB 250 billion trade-in fund has been fully allocated. Looking back at the first eight months of 2026, retail sales of trade-in related goods reached RMB 1.55 trillion, with subsidies benefiting 208 million consumers. Among them, 108 million new digital and smart devices were purchased, while retail sales of telecommunications equipment and wearable smart devices maintained rapid growth.

According to a recent report from Counterpoint Research, driven by rising memory and component costs, global smartphone retail prices have risen by an average of 15% since the beginning of 2026, with the China market, which has a higher share of premium models, seeing an increase of 10%. Faced with price increases, consumers may extend their replacement cycles, opt for lower-memory models, and turn to secondhand and refurbished devices; at the same time, installment and trade-in programs have also partially mitigated the impact of rising prices. On new product launches, Apple’s iPhone 18 Pro series performed strongly in its China debut, with sales in the first three days of availability growing 12% year-over-year compared with the iPhone 17 Pro series. The strong initial sales performance may be attributed to multiple factors: the delayed launch of the base model prompting consumers to shift to the Pro series, other brands’ flagship price increases of more than USD 200 raising consumer price anchors and giving iPhone a relative price advantage, or active support from distribution channels.