tales from Korea

The Korean market for phones is notoriously locked in. This seems to be the common viewpoint from the west, and one to a certain degree I agree with. From a Korean perspective, they’re simply proud of their domestic electronic giants and that by supporting their own market it will ultimately benefit their economy. I can’t really see how this can still be a worthy argument, especially considering that Samsung and LG are the second and third largest phone manufactures in the world. The number one is still Nokia, of course, but according to some Koreans I’ve talked to “Nokia came to Korea but just totally failed, no one was interested in their products”. I’m a bit sceptical of this, but no matter. Then the rumours of the iPhone came along, a popular Smartphone in the U.S. and Europe, it picked up the nickname ‘Next months phone’ because it has been constantly delayed for pretty much the last few years. Korean law has some nice regulations protecting the domestic market, but in fairness the government seems to be taking steps to loosen these regulations. When the iPhone passed the regulations just two months before, KT picked up the bandwagon and released the phone here just a few days ago. This is even after a release in China last year! The lone company who released it is KT (Korean telecom) and in my opinion, they made some smart choices about the hurried release. They could have accepted the Korean foreign phone failure attitude and just have directed the iPhone at a very niche market where they could have charged outlandish monthly charges they this segment would be willing to pay. But they released the phone with a heavy subsidy and several different pricing options marketed at a broader audience. The one ‘catch’ per-se, is the 24-month contract.

I never would have picked up an expensive Smartphone back home, for one simple reason: The chances of it being stolen are probably quite high. In Korea, this type of theft is extremely uncommon – most people have nice phones and with most phones being CDMA with no SIM card, stolen phones are essentially useless.

The iPhone cost W396,000 ($346) upfront with a W45,000 ($39) a month contract, this was my choice.

The slew of extremely useful features makes it for me, very much worth the money. I’m a happy man.