Apple’s revolutionary iPhone shakes up 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," Kelly Olsen reports for The Associated Press. "'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 Nov. 22, 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," Olsen reports. "So far, KT Corp., the local mobile carrier which has contracted with Apple to sell service plans for the phone, says it has received 53,000 advance orders ahead of Saturday's official launch.

Olsen reports, "Such numbers have impressed analysts. 'This is phenomenal,' said Hwang Sung-jin, who monitors the industry at Prudential Investment & Securities Co. in Seoul... 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."

{Via MacDailyNews}