iPhone 5 Fails to Impress Koreans

Published on 2013/01/12 | Source

Apple's latest iPhone 5 has notched up disappointing sales since it was launched in Korea on Dec. 7. About 400,000 units of the smartphone had been sold by last Friday, industry figures show.

Pundits had predicted that more than 1.5 million of the phones would be sold during the period based on the number of buyers of previous iPhone models.

Sales are unlikely to pick up massively since the bulk is usually sold right after a model's release. The daily sales volume of the iPhone 5 is smaller than of Samsung's Galaxy Note 2, which was rolled out more than three months earlier, according to industry estimates.

Some 17,000 units of the Galaxy Note 2 and about 10,000 iPhone 5s are sold on average every day.

"It seems that the iPhone 5 failed to create a sensation in the initial stage of sales in the Korean market because it doesn't have many innovative features compared to previous models and its release here was delayed", an industry insider speculated.

The phone was launched in the U.S. in September.