should staff phones be owned at all?

Apple’s decision to put iPhones, iPads and Macs on a formal leasing model in the United States looks at first like a consumer-finance story.

For UK SMEs, it raises a much more interesting question: when smartphones are essential work tools that depreciate quickly, is outright ownership still the best way to buy them?

As Business Matters reported when Apple Upgrade launched, Apple has partnered with Klarna to offer 12- and 24-month leases on iPhones and Apple Watches, with longer terms on Macs and iPads. Customers can return the hardware, buy it outright or enter a new lease at the end of the term. The scheme is US-only for now, but the structure is a useful preview of where business-device procurement may be heading.

Why leasing looks attractive to smaller businesses

The obvious appeal is cash flow. Buying 20 premium smartphones in one month creates a visible capital hit; spreading the cost over a predictable term makes budgeting easier and keeps cash available for payroll, marketing or growth. It also aligns the device payment with the period during which staff actually use the hardware.

Klarna’s official announcement says Apple Upgrade lets users trade in an existing device at the start to reduce the monthly cost, then choose whether to return, buy or upgrade at the end. That model removes some of the friction around keeping a fleet current.

But ownership has something leasing hides: residual value

A company-owned phone is not just an expense. Until it is written off, lost or left in a cupboard, it is also a resaleable asset. That matters because recent flagship phones can retain hundreds of pounds of value long after they have been replaced operationally.

For illustration, SellMyPhone’s iPhone 16 Pro comparison showed a leading offer of about £511 for a working device when checked in August 2026. Twenty similar handsets would therefore represent more than £10,000 of gross resale value before any bulk pricing, condition adjustments or business-specific terms are considered. The exact number changes daily, but the principle is important: a fleet has an exit value.

Businesses that own their hardware can recover that value through a structured business phone recycling process rather than simply returning every device to a lessor. That residual value belongs in the total-cost calculation from day one.

Lease versus buy: the total-cost question

The wrong comparison is monthly lease payment versus purchase price. The useful comparison is the total cost of providing a working phone to an employee for two or three years after financing, insurance, repairs, administration and residual value are all included.

For a five-person creative agency, the administrative simplicity of leasing may be worth paying for. For a 200-device field workforce that already has IT asset-management processes, retaining the residual value could materially change the economics. There is no universal answer.

The hidden cost is poor lifecycle management

The biggest mistake is not necessarily choosing the wrong finance model. It is buying phones, replacing them every two or three years, and then failing to close the loop. A £500 device that sits unused for 12 months is not a £500 asset any more. It is a depreciating asset that no employee is using.

That is why SMEs should treat mobile hardware like any other managed business asset. Record the model, storage, condition, assigned employee, purchase date and planned replacement date. When a device leaves service, wipe it securely, obtain a market valuation and make a deliberate decision to redeploy, sell or recycle it.

A leasing trend could change how firms think about phones

Apple Upgrade does not yet give UK SMEs a new procurement option, and it would be premature to assume the US model will be copied here unchanged. What it does do is challenge an old assumption: that buying the handset is automatically the normal way to provide mobile technology.

As subscription and device-as-a-service models spread, finance directors should ask a more disciplined question. Do we want the lowest upfront cost, the simplest replacement cycle, or the best whole-life return from the asset?

Three questions to ask before the next fleet refresh

• What is the true two- or three-year cost per employee after resale value is deducted?
• Who owns the residual value at the end of the agreement?
• Does the business have a reliable process for wiping, collecting and selling redundant devices quickly?

For firms that buy outright, the final question is especially important. A company can use SellMyPhone’s business comparison service to put multiple devices in front of UK recyclers, obtain competing quotes and arrange certified data erasure rather than treating end-of-life hardware as an afterthought.

Apple’s leasing experiment may or may not become the dominant model. But it has made one thing clearer: smartphones are now significant business assets with a financing cost, an operational life and an exit value. SMEs that measure all three will make better procurement decisions than those that focus only on the monthly bill.