The iPhone will be available in South Korea for the first time ever later this month. If the overall success is comparable to early pre-order reaction, it seems as though the iPhone will be in just about every hand that carries a cell phone in South Korea. One company has already reported that over 15,000 units have been pre-ordered within the first day of availability.

As the phones themselves will not be available in stores until Saturday (at least they hope so), many consumers are taking advantage of Internet sites that are allowing them to pre-order the phones. This has been a much anticipated release as it is been delayed several times, but this finally seems like it will be the real deal. With this new market opening up, the iPhone will only solidify its position as the number one smart phone being used by consumers today.

As AT&T has exclusivity (at least for now) on the iPhone in the United States,

KT has the exclusive contract in South Korea. Initially, they will have both the 16GB and the 32GB models available in their stores. This is a big move for Apple as the two primary companies that dominate the market in South Korea are Samsung and LG. Both of these companies rely on this market heavily and have every reason to be worried now that the iPhone will be readily available.

It will be interesting to watch and see how this develops over the next few months. If Apple manages to get a stranglehold on the Asian market as it is already done in its other markets, this company will clearly be the dominant force in smart phone development (as if they already don’t hold that title). Once again, the consumer will be the primary beneficiary as every other cell phone company will have to step up to create better phones that can compete with the iPhone or they will risk losing their market share altogether.

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