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​iPhone 7 to launch in South Korea on October 14

Apple's iPhone 7 will join the fray late in South Korea against Samsung's Galaxy Note 7 and LG's V20.
Written by Cho Mu-Hyun, Contributing Writer

Apple will launch the iPhone 7 in South Korea on October 14 at the earliest, officials from local telecoms have said.

The firm will join the competition two weeks later than homegrown South Korean rivals: Samsung is planning to resume sales of its Galaxy Note 7 October 1, after halting for near a month in the country due to its recall, while LG will launch the V20 on Thursday.

Local telcos SK Telecom and KT are nearly finished with testing network compatibility. The all-new AirPods have already been approved for distribution by authorities.

Pricing for the new iPhone has not been revealed yet. Last year, iPhone 6S was priced at 869,000 won. Similar pricing would make it cheaper than the V20 and Note 7.

South Korea is dominated by local titan Samsung, which controls over 70 percent of the market share, but the recent global recall of the Note 7s due to battery explosions has given a window to Apple and LG.

According to local analysts, Apple may sell 100 million iPhone 7s globally this year, thanks to Samsung's recall.

Sources within telcos said the firm may promote iPhones more if demand for the Note 7 does not recover to what it was before the recall.

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