Mobile carriers release iPhone 6 in S. Korea

All News 14:35 October 31, 2014

SEOUL, Oct. 31 (Yonhap) -- South Korean mobile carriers released the new iPhone 6 series Friday, as the local smartphone market readies for more tough competition between Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co.

Market leader SK Telecom Co., its rival KT Corp. and smaller player LG Uplus Inc. released the 16-gigabyte iPhone 6 at a factory price of 789,800 won (US$749) and the 64-gigabyte model at 924,000 won, the mobile carrier said in a statement.

The store prices for the wider-screen iPhone 6 Plus are 924,000 won and 1.05 million won, it said.

The 128-gigabyte versions are available at 1.05 million won and 1.18 million won, respectively.

It is the first time for LG Uplus to sell the iPhone series, since older iPhone handsets did not support the voice over long-term evolution (VoLTE) network, which LG Uplus is mainly focused on.

SK Telecom and KT used the third-generation (3G) to support previous iPhones.

Apple announced earlier in the month it would release the iPhone 6 models in Korea on Oct. 31. Beijing went two weeks ahead of Seoul with iPhone 6 sales.

Local carriers received preorders for the new Apple handsets on Oct. 24. via their websites. The preorders were closed within the first couple of hours as tech-savvy consumers flocked to log in for an early purchase.