South Korea Nets 130K iPhone Pre-Orders in 13 Hours

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It’s becoming a trend with iPhone 4 pre-sales: huge demand equals overwhelmed sites. It was no different in Korea, where consumers deluged carrier KT’s website. Before the site went down ,the carrier (and its 2900 retail locations) Wednesday pre-sold 130,000 iPhone 4s in 13 hours – or 10,000 Apple handsets per hour.

The 130,000 figure pales in comparison to the 600,000 first-day U.S. pre-orders, but is a dramatic increase over initial demand of Apple’s previous handset, the iPhone 3GS. When the 3GS launched in 2009, KT accepted 14,500 pre-orders on that first day.


Additionally, the figure is a testament to how much Koreans love the Apple brand. The iPhone 4 launch in the country was delayed from July 30th to sometime in September.

The last handset South Koreans rushed to buy was the Android-based Samsung Galaxy S in July. Although the handset racked-up 300,000 initial sales, it took 19 days.

[9to5Mac, Korea Herald, Fortune]

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