Eight months after its global launch, Apple Inc.'s iPad finally arrived in the world's most wired country on Tuesday, reminding local consumers of the frustrations they experienced with a belated release of the iPhone last year.
KT Corp., the country's sole distributor of Apple's iPhone at the moment, celebrated the release of another one of Apple's highly anticipated products with a launching ceremony in Seoul.
"We received about 50,000 iPad pre-orders in about two weeks," said the company spokesman Ham Young-jin.
Since its debut in the United States and selected countries, global sales of the 9.7-inch tablet computer reached 4.19 million as of September, according to the U.S. company's statement.
Though the figure fell short of 5 million sales anticipated by market analysts, Apple still accounted for 95 percent of the global tablet PC
market in the July-September period, according to Strategy Analytics.
The iPad's brisk sales spawned other touch screen tablet products from a string of global phone and computer makers, including Dell Inc., Research In Motion Ltd. and Samsung Electronics Co.
For tech-savvy South Korean consumers who saw the first iPhone at the end of 2009, nearly three years later than other major countries, the iPad's eight-month tardy arrival was another painful reminder how the Korean wireless market is still a bastion of local mobile brands and regulatory barriers.
"I felt envious when I saw people (in Korea) who got iPads from abroad," said Kim Yong-seok, 36, before he was about to get his pre-ordered iPad.
"But I endured. I was also frustrated before the iPhone's release, but as I had experienced (the delay) once before, I developed a kind of tolerance."
According to KT, about 500 people registered their iPads purchased overseas before the tablet made an official debut in South Korea.
The company, South Korea's top fixed-line operator and No. 2 mobile carrier, sold more than 1.62 million iPhones in one year.
KT's rival SK Telecom Co., also an operator of Samsung's Galaxy S smartphones, sold more than 25,000 Galaxy Tab computers since its Nov. 13
launch, waging another round of battle between Samsung and Apple in the country.