The iPhone officially went on sale in China at the end of October and in Japan in summer last year, but many people in one important Asian market were still waiting for it the whole time: Korea. After getting the official government approval in mid-November, the country’s number two mobile carrier, KT Corporation, started rolling out the iPhone on November 28. And it can be happy about a pretty successful roll-out.
Between 60,000 and 65,000 iPhone 3GS were reportedly pre-ordered in the first week. This is pretty impressive in a country, which is as over-saturated with high-quality domestic phones as Japan (where the iPhone sells pretty well, too) and where the percentage of smartphone users is said to stand at the one percent level. In fact, media reports suggest KT Corporation was totally overwhelmed by the interest and couldn’t handle the pre-orders properly.
Koreans have to pay $340 for the 32GB iPhone 3GS, provided they agree to the $39 fee for the cheapest monthly plan KT Corporation offers for it. The 8GB model costs $115 under the same condition and can be free when users sign for more expensive monthly rates. Every Korean iPhone customer will be able to use KT Corporation’s 13,000 Wi-Fi spots all over the country for no cost.
I am really wondering how the iPhone renders Korean websites though (many of those are Internet Explorer-only).
Singapore will launch iPhone too. Check out MobileWhiz Site: http://bit.ly/8fetep
I thought Singapore already had the iPhone? At least my friend there has one already (as his data fees are much higher than mine in the US).
Many of Korean websites are still supporting only IE, but most popular portal services in Korea like Naver, Daum are providing mobile version of their web sites and even iPhone apps as well, to allow users to use their featured services in easier way than in mobile browsers. And iPhone could be the game changer of Korean internet and mobile industry. I mean, not only iPhone could be affected by IE-only environment, but also this bad condition of user experience could be enhanced by iPhone finally.
I’m intrigued by which Korean websites and Korean Apps are supported by the iphone,
My wife’s Korean and she says that she wish she had the Pandora TV app on her phone because it only plays certain Korean TV shows that only available through that particular website. There are a lot of websites by Koreans that do not run on the iPhone (i presume to some sort of propriety video player).
It’ll be nice to have a list of all the Korean Website and Apps supported by iPhone for those on the US who aren’t familiar with what’s out there. So we can patronize those joints.
Thanks!
Bill
the *other* problem that’s beginning to surface is that too many small startups aiming to catch some mobile browsing traffic are catering solely to the iPhone’s safari, and it breaks in pretty much any other mobile browser ( http://neoocean.net/blog/2011 )
Yes, Singapore already offers the iphone –a friend of mine visited the states this summer and showed me her iphone.
iPhone 3GS is trying its luck in the east.
Here in India the sales are nearly minimal. Many factors responsible for it.
that’s interesting.. it talks of the 3G and 3GS iPhone launch in Singapore.
You were referring to 8GB 3G? or 16GB 3GS?