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Apple Korea has been inundated with calls asking when the iPhone will debut here after the firm¡¯s first mobile phone was unveiled in the U.S. on Jan. 9.
The iPhone is Apple¡¯s next strategic product, this time with designs on the smartphone market, after conquering the global MP3 player market with its iPod series. The iPhone¡¯s innovative design has a touch screen rather than number buttons and allows users to listen to music, surf the Internet and send e-mails. Apple CEO Steve Jobs said the phone will hit the U.S. market first in June and the European market in the second half of the year. Asian customers will have to wait till next year.
But that may still not be good enough for Korean users, because the iPhone is based on the GSM protocol rather than Korea¡¯s CDMA. In the U.S., both systems are in use, but Apple is unlikely to develop CDMA-based iPhones because Korea is a small market dominated by local companies like Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, the only country where the world¡¯s no.1 and 2, Nokia and Motorola, have lost the battle.
Sales of Apple¡¯s global hit products, the iPod and Macintosh computers, are sluggish in Korea. The company is therefore unlikely to change its lukewarm attitude soon.
But there is a variable: the next-generation W-CDMA service. W-CDMA cell phones with access to the wireless high-speed Internet will be used in many countries including Korea, and Apple may soon have to develop an iPhone tailored for W-CDMA.
In that case, and not until about a year hence, domestic telecom providers would seek an agreement with Apple to import iPhones. But Apple Korea spokesman Kim Min-seok says the company has so far had no discussions with Korean mobile operators.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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