South Korea Opens Market To iPhone, Others
7:40 am, December 10th, 2008, Ed Sutherland
iPhone enters S. Korea starting Apr. 1 (photo: Jinho.Jung/Flickr)
The South Korean government has put out the ‘welcome’ mat for Apple’s iPhone and other handset makers, dropping a long-standing demand that blocked foreign cell phones from the tech-saavy country.
The Korean Communications Commission said starting April 1 it will no longer require cell phone makers adopt the home-grown Korean Wireless Internet Platform for Interoperability, or WAPI specification.
The rule, in place since 2005, had prevent Apple, RIM and others from competing against local handset makers. Samsung and LG now control 90 percent of the South Korean market.
The action leaves China as one of the last remaining markets demanding Apple adopt local technology in return for access to consumers. China’s government has asked cell phone makers use its locally-grown TD-SCDMA instead of internationally-approved 3G technology. In November, CEO of China Mobile said talks were still ongoing to bring the iPhone to the nation’s 600 million cell phone subscribers.
In order to enter the Egyptian market, Apple agreed to sell iPhones without GPS after the government voiced security concerns, the New York Times reported earlier this week.
Posted by Ed Sutherland in News | Comment on this article
There’s a typo in there. It’s WIPI, pronounced “wheepee.” As a regular subscriber of Cult of Mac, it’s nice hearing good news like these about my home country. Keep it up!
HJS, on December 16th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
I wonder if there will be much market penetration of the iPhone considering there are many in-house smartphones which are very appealing to the people.
If you can get an HTC in Korea for the same price, why would they chose the foreign product?
HardWare, on December 16th, 2008 at 11:48 pm