iPhone 4S Registers Weak Sales in South Korea

Apple’s iPhone 4S device has already managed to prove successful in a series of markets around the world, but not in South Korea, where demand is said to be rather poor.

Apparently, the handset is gathering dust on shelves at various wireless carriers in the country, which is not encouraging at all for the Cupertino-based company.

Korea Times reports that SK Telecom and KT, two of the largest wireless carriers in the country, have managed to sell only 300,000 iPhone units since the device became available on November 3rd.

Apparently, the operators expected for twice as much units to have been sold before Christmas, but there are little chances they will actually manage to do so.

In an attempt to make the iPhone 4S more appealing, wireless carriers are said to plan significant price cuts for it, with some models now available for over 20 percent less than when launched.

According to the Korea Times report, users are currently interested in the purchase of 4G LTE (long-term evolution) handsets, but the iPhone 4S does not fall into this category.

Carriers in the country are set to provide their users with the fastest data transfer speeds as possible, and devices that are based on Google’s Android platform seem to be those capable of satisfying user’s needs.

Vendors such as Samsung, LG and Pantech have already released various LTE-enabled smartphones and tablet PCs based on Android, and are certainly planning to launch more of them.

At the moment, Samsung leads the LTE market in South Korea, accounting for around 2 thirds of the segment.

The phone maker has announced a few days ago handset sales of over 300 million units in 2011 alone, greatly helped by its latest smartphones running under Android.

Galaxy S II, for example, has proved very popular in South Korea, becoming the fastest selling smartphone there shortly after being officially released on shelves.