South Korea’s three mobile network providers will reportedly start selling the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus from October 21, according to reports coming out of the country.
The news comes at a bad time for South Korea’s Samsung, which is still reeling from a costly recall of its exploding Galaxy Note 7 handsets, which it reportedly rushed to market to beat Apple to the next great smartphone.
At present, Apple holds around 20 percent of the South Korean market share. This figure topped out at 33 percent when the iPhone 6 was at the top of its game.
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Although Apple has never been a company that chases market share as the be-all-and-end-all, Samsung can’t be happy about a recent poll suggesting that younger smartphone users, in their twenties, prefer the iPhone, while Samsung handsets are heavily favored by the 50+ set.
The controversies surrounding the Note 7 have also triggered a number of would-be customers jumping over to the iPhone 7 instead.
In other bad news for Apple, the South Korean market is additionally being overloaded by the arrival of plenty of low-cost Android handsets made in China. The fear is that Apple’s iPhone 7 may squeeze Samsung’s sales at the top end of the price spectrum, while lower-cost devices will squeeze it at the bottom.
Finally, this month it was reported that Apple plans to open its first retail store in South Korea, with an Apple store located directly across the street from Samsung’s headquarters in Seoul.
And just when Samsung thought exploding handsets were the worst thing that could happen in 2016!
Via: Patently Apple