KT to carry Nexus One; Korean iPhone sales top 732,000
updated 02:40 pm EDT, Mon May 31, 2010
KT to have own Nexus One version
Korean cell carrier KT said on Monday that it would carry the Nexus One. The launch is the first since Google stopped selling online-only and will see the phone first available through KT's online store in late June and its physical stores by July. It should be fundamentally the same as the international GSM version but may come loaded with Android 2.2 out of the box.
Google's first direct footprint in Korea comes just as KT reported that sales of the iPhone were still strong in the country. As of today, the provider has sold 732,000 of the Apple handset since it was first launched in November, amounting to slightly more than 100,000 phones sold each month. Despite the relative age of the phone and word of the upcoming model, the sales rate has been steady since at least April. It may put the iPhone ahead of Samsung's Omnia II, which had reached 600,000 in April but managed this only with the help of multiple carriers.
KT's mobile division president Pyo Hyun-myung claimed to Yonhap that nothing had been settled on whether or not the carrier would have the next iPhone or a 3G data plan deal for the iPad. The new smartphone is expected to reach KT given the company's heavy dependence on smartphones, as sales grew from 200,000 smartphones a year ago on KT to 2 million today, but most such plans are only made public once carriers are ready to unveil their plans.
