Seoul gets the iPhone
After years of obstacles being placed in the way by local lawmakers at the behest of South Korean handset manufacturers, Apple is finally going to be allowed to sell the iPhone there.
A number of authoritative reports are saying that South Korean cellular regulators have finally lowered the last barrier aimed at keeping South Koreans using phones manufactured in South Korea, thus keeping foreign handsets out, according to a Reuters story. It has been a sweet deal for the local manufacturers, but it is apparently coming to an end. KT Corp (aka KTC), the country’s second largest carrier, has said that it will be ready to take online orders for the iPhone tomorrow, with sales officially beginning on Oct. 28.
It stands to reason that Samsung and LG, both handset manufacturers of substance, tried hard to keep Apple out of their home market. They were successful for a long time, urging regulators to keep making technical rules that kept non-local phones out of the country as much as possible. The Korea Communications Commission said in a statement today that it would grant Apple’s South Korean sales unit a license that will allow the company to begin collecting information on GPS locations and to begin providing services such as map, phone locating and related marketing.
With this latest barrier out of the way, hard on the heels of the recent lifting of a rule that forced mobile phones sold locally to use a home-grown platform, the South Korean market will now be open to more foreign models. Before these changes, foreign manufacturers primarily avoided the South Korean marketplace because of the difficulties surrounding re-engineering handsets to comply with local rules. The iPhone will likely be a welcome addition to the smartphone lineup in South Korea, bringing something new and different into what had been a less-than-thrilling marketplace. One can be sure that manufacturers other than Apple will soon be taking advantage of the rule changes in this Asian country with an estimated 47 million cell phone users.
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