Are BlackBerry and HTC owners the real target for the Samsung Galaxy S 4?

There’s an interesting story from sellmymobile, the website that lets people trade in their old handsets. It is reporting a surge in the number of people trading in old HTC and BlackBerry mobiles as they wait to get their mitts on the new Samsung Galaxy S 4 which arrives in the UK in late April.

Apparently trade-ins of HTC models on the site have shot up by 82 per cent in the two days since Samsung announced the Galaxy S4, while BlackBerry trade-ins have gone up 56 per cent.

The site also adds that Samsung users are ditching their old phones in preparation for the arrival of the new device too.

However as Colin White, managing director of Sellmymobile comments

‘The rise in trade-ins of HTC and BlackBerry devices highlights the increasing rivalry between handset giants as consumers cash-in on the old in exchange for the new. But it’s interesting to see that despite the hype, we haven’t seen the same surge in trade-ins that we do with most Apple device launches.’

So maybe what we are seeing is a shift from owners of other non Apple phones towards the Galaxy S 4, while Apple owners stay resolutely tied to their brand. Anecdotally the only iPhone owners I know who have shifted to Android have been attracted by the Galaxy Note and its significantly larger screen. So maybe the S4’s expected popularity will be fuelled by owners migrating from existing Android handsets and BlackBerry ones.

So are you looking to swap your HTC or Blackberry phones for a S 4?