iPhone 6, 6 Plus outpace Note 4 preorders in South Korea

In their home country of South Korea, Samsung reigns supreme. They get quite a bit of competition from LG, but by and large, Samsung is top dog at home. That reign may come to an end, though, if the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus preorders are any indication. Early returns suggest the iPhone 6 and its larger counterpart will compete for control of the high end South Korean smartphone market. According to several retailers, the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus preorders are outshining the Note 4 in a big way.

In the first minute of pre-orders, KT Corporation, the first telecom company to bring an iPhone to South Korea, noted 10,000 preorders for the latest from Apple. In half an hour, those preorders were at 50,000 units.

LG Uplus, which is selling the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus as their first iPhone offering ever, said they had 20,000 preorders in 20 minutes. The nation's largest carrier, SK Telecom, refused to submit numbers, but said they were tapped dry on preorders.

Comparably, the Note 4 saw roughly 30,000 preorders in a similar timeframe. Analysts estimate the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus preorders top 100,000.

That's a 3-to-1 margin of victory for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, but let's put that into a bit of perspective.

If we're comparing Samsung's apples to Apple's, it's more appropriate to position the iPhone 6 Plus against the Note 4 for preorder numbers. If reports of the iPhone 6 Plus' production woes are true, and that the iPhone 6 comprises a bulk of the preorders in a given scenario because of it, then the iPhone 6 Plus and Samsung Note 4 are likely (or at least close to) equally matched.

Still, it's a big threat to Samsung's model that the iPhone duo are making such an impact, and even if the iPhone 6 duo are matching the Galaxy S5/Note 4 phone-for-phone in preorders, that's never happened before in South Korea.

Source: The Wall Street Journal