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SEOUL, South Korea – The iPhone’s arrival in South Korea is generating considerable buzz among consumers and industry watchers amid expectations it will shake up a market dominated by world-beating domestic manufacturers.
“I can’t wait to get my iPhone,” said Na Hae-bin, a 30-year-old market researcher at an Internet company, who reserved one as soon as he could. “My heart was beating fast.”
Judging from pre-orders that started Sunday, Apple Inc.’s hit communications device appears set to make serious inroads in South Korea – home to some of the world’s most sophisticated mobile phone users.
So far, KT Corp., the local mobile carrier that has contracted with Apple to sell service plans for the phone, says it has received 53,000 advance orders ahead of today’s official launch.
Such numbers have impressed analysts.
“This is phenomenal,” said Hwang Sung-jin, who monitors the industry at Prudential Investment & Securities Co. in Seoul.
“The iPhone’s release will definitely stiffen competition for local companies such as Samsung and LG,” Hwang said.
But he added it is difficult to assess how much of an inroad the iPhone will make in the growing domestic smartphone market, which he said totaled about 400,000 users at the end of the third quarter.
Smartphones are advanced mobile phones that have computer-like capabilities and features such as surfing the Internet and can play music, show movies and determine locations and find directions.
Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc. are estimated together to account for over 80 percent of the total domestic mobile phone market of about 47 million handsets.
