Well, the iPhone was released in Korea about a week ago, and despite all the nay-saying in the media, it has been a successful release, to say the least. Prior to its launch, the media was full of quotes from “industry insiders” who “didn’t want to be named” who were saying the iphone would not be successful in Korea because Korea has four distinct seasons and 5,000 years of monopolistic and draconian market dominance by domestic handphone manufacturers and domestic handphone service providers. One “expert” who did allow his name to be published, should probably start thinking about a new career path.
“I am very skeptical of the iPhone’s success in Korea,” said Oh Sung-kwon, a telecommunications analyst at Kyobo Securities Co. “Koreans have waited too long for its launch. Most people who were tired of waiting bought the iPod Touch instead.” The iPod Touch is basically an iPhone without mobile phone capability. “Also, KT will not give up one of their biggest money sources [content services] that easily,” he added. (Link)
I didn’t think Korea had a crack problem until I read that above quote. In my opinion, and I could probably be a telecommunications analyst at this point, a lot of people didn’t buy the iPod Touch because it lacked the mobile phone capability. There were other quotes like this in the media prior to launch, but I’m too lazy to search for them. They all boiled down to “Koreans won’t buy the iphone because the iphone isn’t made by LG or Samsung”.
Over at the Marmot’s hole, there is a post, and much more active comment thread, regarding the success of the iPhone in Korea. In one of the two comments I wrote, I mentioned that:
To which “some in the industry” replied:
“The iPhone already has its basic software, and so the role of local software developers in creating something new for the iPhone will be limited,” said one software developer in Korea who declined to be named for this article. (Link)
I didn’t think Korea had a PCP problem until I read that above quote. At no other time in my eight-or-so years here have I witnessed a “foreign” product stirring up so much hype. Furthermore, at no other time have I believed so strongly that a watershed of change was on the horizon. For the release of the iPhone has far-reaching effects. It isn’t just a sexy and hip device that “early adopters” want. It’s a platform that promotes compliance with international standards; something that the Korean web-monoculture (and here) desperately needs and requires if it wants to stay competitive in the global marketplace. With more and more people choosing the iPhone and computing alternatives to Microsoft products like MacOS, Linux, Ubuntu, and non IE browsers like Safari, Firefox, Opera, Chrome, etc., the Korean government is going to come under increasing pressure to change, among other things, online banking regulations and offer cross-platform verification tools. ActiveX, which is, for the most part, only accessible through Microsoft products, and has serious security flaws, is going to have to be dropped in favour of SSL/TLS. This is long over due.
Another change I hope occurs, will be the questioning of domestic manufacturers over what is often called “the Korean discount”. The fact that a product manufactured in Korea is cheaper outside Korea is, to say the least, retarded. The fact that the iPhone is more expensive in Korea than it is in the United States isn’t hard to believe. What is hard to believe is that products manufactured in Korea to compete with the iPhone are actually cheaper overseas than they are in Korea. It isn’t just phones. You can buy a “better” Hyundai Genesis in the US and ship it to Korea at a lower cost than purchasing a “toned-down” version of the car in Korea. That simply does not make much sense. Koreans, who are becoming more and more leveraged and indebted, need to start protesting this tactic. A Korean should not pay more for a product here so that it can be sold cheaper somewhere else.
In Korea, the iPhone costs 814,000 won, and is imported. The Samsung Omnia™ II , which is manufactured in Korea, costs 924,000. Even if the Omnia™ II is better and comes with more features, it’s more expensive than anywhere else in the world. For example, Bell Mobility, in Canada, is selling the Omnia™ II for just $549.95, or 603,273KRW, without a contract. That’s quite a bit cheaper than in Korea, no?
There are already iphone aps for bus/subway routes/schedules. There is probably a Korean version of twitterific on the horizon, and the aps that SK developers have been making for the iphone for quite some time now will probably be translated into Korean very quickly. Expect an explosion in the number of aps for the Korean market for the iphone.
The best thing about aps on the iphone is that Korean conglomerates cannot control who develops them (Apple can, but that’s another story), and I think that is GREAT NEWS for small businesses, and bad news for operators like SKT…who’ll never be able to maintain their draconian controls if they want to compete. All in all, even if you don’t want an iphone, better services and functionality on other phones in the very near future is to be expected.