He said iPhone sales reached 100 units per day at his two KT stores, accounting for around 80 percent of total handset sales there. “It’s a war. iPhone sales are explosive,” Lee told The Korea Herald.
He said his store is running short of iPhones because of strong demand. Korean customers snapped up 70,000 iPhones as of Sunday – just eight days after its release in Korea, according to a KT spokesperson.
This is rare in the Korean handset market, which has been dominated by Samsung and LG. Global handset makers such as Nokia and Sony Ericsson have posted poor sales here.
It remains to be seen whether the initial strong sales of Apple’s iPhone, driven by pent-up demand, will continue. But for now, the small gadget is rattling the country’s mobile market.
The iPhone launch appears to have hit LG harder than Samsung. Sales of LG’s flagship phone Chocolate slumped this month, and the company has few competitive smartphone models.
“Sales of the Chocolate phone are meager,” a KT spokesperson said yesterday, without giving the figure.
Top mobile carrier SK Telecom also said yesterday daily sales of the Chocolate slumped to 250 units this month, from 400 units last month.
This contrasts with Samsung’s new smartphone Omina 2, whose daily sales reached a whopping 5,000 units per day this month, SK said. SK Telecom, which does not offer the iPhone, sharply increased its subsidies for Omnia 2, to stave off the challenge from the iPhone.
The iPhone, which is offered exclusively via second-ranked KT, also posted 5,000 units of daily sales this month, according to a local report yesterday. – read more at The Korea Herald…
Apple's iPhone is a big hit in its first week of release in South Korea
Daum, which operates the eponymous Web portal that trails only Naver (www.naver.com) in online traffic, is having all of its 1,000 employees choose between the newly released Apple iPhone and Samsung’s flagship smart phone, T-Omnia II, in the company’s free phone program.
Daum is desperate to get ahead in mobile Internet services, and by providing data-enabled handsets to employees for free and paying for their data expenses for the first two years, the company is looking to source innovation in-house.
It remains to be seen which between the iPhone and T-Omnia II end up as the phone of choice for Daum employees, and Samsung seems eager to advise them on their happy headache.
According to Daum officials, Samsung sent sales personnel to Daum’s Seoul headquarters to convince the company’s employees that T-Omnia II represents the better device.
The iPhone is released by KT, the country’s second-biggest mobile operator, while T-Omnia II is pitched by SK Telecom, the top wireless carrier that has a 50-percent-plus market share.
“We thought we were getting iPhones at first, but with T-Omnia II later becoming an option, there are more things to think about,” said a Daum employee.
“In the past few years, we have been putting much emphasis on delivering mobile Internet services and Apple’s mobile Internet devices, such as the iPhone and iPod Touch, were greatly considered when we developed new applications. So there has been a buzz in anticipation of an iPhone release among us for years, but you would have to say that T-Omnia II is an impressive device in its own right.”
Although it would be over-the-top to call the event the “Judgment of Daum,” it is easy to understand why the normally unflappable Samsung is touchy about the results.
Less than a week after its release, iPhones are flying off Korean shelves and showing promise to shake the hierarchy of the local handset market where Samsung and its bitter industry rival, LG Electronics, have been enjoying a near-duopoly. – read more at The Korea Times…
Samsung's NAND flash memory chips are used in Apple's iPhone
And there is not much that Samsung Electronics, the world’s biggest flash memory maker, and Hynix Semiconductor, the industry’s No. 3 player, can do about Apple’s moves, as the American company increasingly gains leveraging power due to the global popularity of its iPhone handsets and other consumer electronics products.
The summary of the arguments goes as this ― Apple is contributing to the suppression in flash memory prices by ordering more chips from semiconductor makers than the amount it actually buys from them.
“Apple should certainly be blamed for deteriorating the supply and demand cycle in the global NAND flash market,” a senior industry official told The Korea Times, refusing to be named.
“Apple has asked Korean semiconductor makers to produce a certain amount of chips for its digital products, only to actually purchase a smaller volume eventually. The company doesn’t make immediate purchases, but waits until chip prices to fall to the level the company has internally targeted.”
The chip industry had hoped Apple would increase purchases of NAND flash memory chips to boost the output of iPhone and other flagship devices.
The global iPhone craze currently has Apple drenched in robust earnings.
NAND flash memory chips are primarily used in memory cards and storage drives in mobile devices, computers and other consumer electronics products.
Another industry official, also reluctant to be identified, used the words “absurd” to describe Apple’s purchasing strategies.
“Samsung and Hynix both provide chips to Apple and have less of an edge in deciding prices and volume. Apple’s strategy could hurt the industry’s health,” he said.
Both Samsung and Hynix refused to officially comment, as did officials from Apple’s Korean office.
“We already knew about this,” a Samsung official said, without elaborating further. – read more at The Korea Times…
A senior executive from China Unicom told China Daily that Chinese business users have showed great interests in Apple Inc’s popular smartphone. “We expect the handset to attract over 10 percent of China’s 3G users in the following two to three years,” said the executive, who declined to be named.
The executive’s remarks came shortly after Unicom’s chairman Chang Xiaobing said on Tuesday that he expects iPhone to become China’s best-selling smart phone.
Unicom was reported to have sold fewer iPhones than analysts anticipated in the product’s debut last month, raising concerns the price is too high to attract customers in the world’s biggest mobile phone market.
The Unicom executive refuted that the pricing of iPhone is unaffordable. He said the pricing is “very reasonable for those who spend heavily on their phone bills every month.”
According to the company, an iPhone without contract costs as much as 6,999 yuan ($1,025) in China, compared with $299 in the United States.
The product will be free when customers select a two-year service plan that cost 886 yuan per month, with Unicom repaying pre-pay bills of up to 7,999 yuan. — read more at ChinaDaily.com
iPhone buyers in Beijing. Photo: it.chinanews.com.cn
That high price was cited by The Wall Street Journal as the “buzz-killer” over the handset’s debut. The high-end iPhone 3GS sells for 6,999 yuan ($1,024) without a service contract, which is how most people in China purchase their phones. The same handset can be bought for about $800 in Hong Kong.
“When wrapped together with a service plan, as is generally done in the U.S., the phone will cost Chinese subscribers at least $3,120 over two years, compared with the roughly $2,600 cost for the same period for customers in the U.S.,” the report said.
The average cost of a smartphone in China is $350. And Apple must also compete with an estimated 2 million imported iPhones that were already in China as of the summer of 2009.
The cheapest iPhone runs 4,999 yuan, or $630, according to The Associated Press. And all of the officially sanctioned models come without Wi-Fi. But an imported iPhone 3GS with Wi-Fi can be bought from Chinese street markets for 5,700 yuan, or $835. read more at AppleInsider.com…
