Waiting on What?
SK Telecom, KT, and LG U+ have decided to delay pre-orders for the iPhone 6S and 6S+.
At first, the three mobile carriers were planning to begin taking pre-orders for Apple's latest iPhone on Oct. 16. However, the schedule for advance sales changed from “starting from Oct. 16” to “planning to start,” according to their official homepages.
“We’ve decided to postpone advance sales of the iPhone 6S and 6+ from Oct. 16 to Oct. 19 in order to provide better services to customers,” said an official at KT on Oct. 15. Apparently, the same is true for SKT and LG U+.
There is a lot of speculation surrounding the three carriers' decisions to delay advance sales.
Some in the industry think that the three mobile carriers have yet to finalize their negotiations with Apple over several conditions, such as the price of the two models and the amount of phone subsidies. The launch price of the iPhone 6S has set around 100,000 won higher than its predecessor owing to strong dollar, and so consumers are disappointed even more.
Pricing starts at 920,000 won (US$816) for the 16 GB model, 1,060,000 won (US$940) for 64 GB, and 1,200,000 won (US$1,064) for a 128 GB iPhone 6S. The 16 GB iPhone 6S+ costs 1,060,000 won (US$940) per unit, 1,200,000 won (US$1,064) for the 64 GB model, and 1,340,000 won (US$1,188) for the 128 GB version.
The 16 GB iPhone 6S is sold for US$649 per unit in the U.S., 140,000 won (US$124) cheaper than in Korea. In the U.S., the price of the iPhone 6S is the same as that of the iPhone 6. The same 16 GB model is around 70,000 won (US$62) cheaper in Japan than Korea.