HYLA Mobile - Making the best out of waste

HYLA is a 7 year old technology company based in Dallas, Texas, USA which focuses on extending the value of renewed mobile devices. It is a privately held company backed by several well-known and widely respected private equity and venture capital firms.

In 2016, the renewed smartphone market was a $17 Billion market with customers selling 120M used smartphones at an average value of $140 per device. It is estimated that it represents a 7% of total smartphone sales.

HYLA’s AI and Machine Learning enabled software encourages mobile operators, retailers and OEMs to actively participate in renewed smartphone ecosystem by offering the competitive trade-in value to the consumers for their used mobile device as they upgrade to the latest and greatest one. Once tested, graded and data cleared, the operators and retailers get to re-use these mobile phones to fulfill their insurance and warranty obligations as claims come in. The remaining devices get sold into the emerging markets where more than 60% of humanity that do not have access to the Internet lives. A renewed mobile device in good condition gives them access that could be life changing.

This is one of those unique endeavors where everyone benefits: carriers and retailers derive economic benefit from the used device, not to mention retain a very valuable customer in the process. Consumer benefits as they get value for their mobile device that would otherwise spend time in desk drawer on its way to a landfill. A consumer in the emerging market gets access to a device that otherwise would have been economically unaffordable to them, and ultimately the environment benefits as less e-Waste gets dumped into landfills.

Customers like AT&T, Verizon, Telus, Best Buy, Facebook and Google have found this activity to be extremely worthwhile. Together with HYLA’s incredible partners, the company has been able to collect and repurpose over 43 million devices, by diverting over 9500 tons of e-waste away from landfills, and avoiding 51.5 Billion gallons of ground water pollution; all while putting $3.5B in the pocket of consumers. Rarely is anyone fortunate to work in an area where there is so much win-win value proposition.

HYLA's President & CEO, Biju Nair is a US Citizen who was born, raised and educated in India and was recently honoured with the IEEE Chairman's award. This award is in recognition of Biju’s sustained contribution in the field of Quality, Reliability & Security of communications services. It includes acknowledging the value he has added to the professional society, and for being an effective role model in the telecommunications industry.