14 DAY TRIAL // It was only recently that the Apple iPhone made an appearance on the South Korean market, yet it seems that the device is poised for impressive performance in the country. According to KT, the local carrier which launched the iPhone, it already managed to sell around 90,000 units of the iconic device, and it expects for a great rise in sales in the near future.
According to the wireless operator, the sale figures include the 53,000 pre-orders for the iPhone it received before putting it on sale, and, based on them, its subscribers might soon have the chance to enjoy the next-gen iPhone too. For what it's worth, the iPhone seems indeed to be the most popular device on the South Korean market, considering the fact that only a number of 400,000 smartphone users are reportedly present in the country.
“We've got some 90,000 iPhone new subscribers, including 53,000 pre-orders after KT officially began local sales of the smartphone on November 28. Although KT is receiving more from China, we need more,” a KT representative stated recently. “Triggered by iPhones' debut in South Korea, the market for smartphones offering e-mail and Web browsing is on a healthy track, giving us a need for more iPhones,” the official also mentioned, reports koreatimes.
The mobile phone carrier expects for the next year to be an even healthier one in terms of iPhone sales. The company says it should to be able to move a number of over 700,000 iPhones in 2010, it seems, driving the smartphone segment in the local market further up. However, there are also voices expecting new devices to become available from local handset vendors to counterattack iPhone's take up.
At the moment, the dominant mobile phone maker on the South Korean market is Samsung Electronics, with around 50 percent market share in November. LG Electronics, another South Korean handset vendor, accounted for 22.1 percent of the market during the last month, while the iPhone is said to have secured around 5 percent market share already.