South Korea lets the iPhone in
By Erna Mahyuni
South Korea has finally dropped a rule that prevented foreign phones from being sold in the country. This means the iPhone, BlackBerry and other smartphone models will finally debut in the most wired country in the world.
The AFP reported that South Korea’s Korea Communications Commission said that it would drop the WIPI requirement from April 1 next year. The telecoms regulator reached the decision after extensive discussions, finally freeing the mobile phone market from protectionism.
South Korea’s mobile phone market is frankly pretty much saturated. Approximately 75 percent of Koreans own at least one mobile phone, and the market is dominated by models from local makers such as LG and Samsung. That domination could be threatened once the market is opened to foreign players like Nokia, Sony Ericsson and, of course, Apple.
Why the reticence of foreign phone markets? Initially, South Korea had made it mandatory for all phones in the country to support the WIPI or Wireless Internet Platform for Interoperability. The middleware platform is expensive to implement, pretty much requiring foreign phone makers to redesign their models or create Korea-specific ones. And the verdict has been pretty much – “the return is not worth the heavy investment.” So Samsung and LG have been happily selling their phones without fear of competition.
Both phone makers already have the advantage of a very early headstart in their home ground, knowing consumer buying patterns and not having to worry about ‘localisation’ when they’re already local. But Korea is also very advanced technologically, making high-end smartphone models such as Apple’s iPhone and RIM’s BlackBerries attractive. RIM has yet to have a foothold in the market where its data services are concerned and with fairly advanced mobile services already available, might find their proprietary service offering a hard sell.
Will the iPhone make a splash in South Korea once it becomes officially available? It will depend very much on what sort of retail deal Apple manages to hatch in the country; if Apple is willing to back down on its usual demands, it just might see another iPhone success in a brand new country.
Related:
Entry was posted
on Wednesday, December 10th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
under 
Print This Post
Read more entries by Erna Mahyuni.
Stumble It!
