According to WSJ's Korea Realtime blog, analysts estimate that pre-orders for the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus have reached roughly 100,000 units, which is over three times the estimated 30,000 units that the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 received over a similar time frame.
The pre-orders for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus began in Korea on Friday. The three mobile carriers reportedly received "tens of thousands" pre-orders in less than an hour. The report notes that KT Corp., the first telecom company to introduce the iPhone in the Korean market, claimed that it racked up 10,000 orders in one minute of the sale, and 50,000 in thirty minutes for both the iPhone models.
On the other hand, LG Uplus Corp., which is selling the iPhone for the first time, claimed that it received 20,000 orders for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus within 20 minutes. The largest mobile carrier in Korean market, SK Telecom Co., also claimed that its first and second batch of pre-sale quota for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus have been fully booked, but it didn't reveal the numbers.
The numbers are likely to go higher as the pre-sale will continue till the smartphones hit store shelves on Friday, October 31.
The report notes that Apple has traditionally enjoyed very little success in Korea, with just 6 percent handset marketshare compared to Samsung's 63 percent, according to Counterpoint Research.
"But with Apple piggybacking on Samsung's large-screen strategy, there are concerns that Samsung will lose its only advantage, which has been its large screen sizes," Lee Seung-woo, an analyst with IBK Securities in Seoul told WSJ's Korea Realtime.
Earlier this month, reports emerging from China had claimed that retailers and telecom operators had collectively received 2 million reservations in first 6 hours for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus booking, with reports later claiming the total pre-orders had reached about 20 million.For details of the latest launches and news from Samsung, Xiaomi, Realme, OnePlus, Oppo and other companies at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, visit our MWC 2025 hub.