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Smartphone recycler ATRenew Inc. (RERE.US) is dipping its toe in several interesting new areas, including used luxury goods and even gold, as well as expanding outside China, in a bid to leverage its name that has become locally synonymous with professional recycling. But first it needs to make it through a difficult patch that it and many others have encountered under China’s strict “zero Covid” policy that has led to widespread business disruptions in recent months.

Signs that those disruptions are starting to fade were on display in the company’s latest quarterly results announced last week, as ATRenew said its revenue growth started to accelerate strongly following a two-month lockdown in its hometown of Shanghai that ended in June. That lockdown, along with similar measures across China to control the spread of the highly contagious Covid Omicron variant, forced ATRenew to close a third of its self-operated recycling stores around China in April and May, the company revealed in its latest quarterly results.