Aju Business Daily

Apple's new smartphone iPhone 8 was finally available in South Korea dominated by excellent home-made smartphones, but fans showed a lukewarm response, breaking their tradition which has been established for years.

The traditional popularity of iPhones has been reflected in an annual new-age ritual practiced by South Koreans trying to make pre-orders on online websites every year when Apple released new models. Despite constant server crashes caused by traffic bottlenecks, Apple fans used to endure such inconveniences.

However, the mood was different on Thursday when South Korean mobile carriers started receiving pre-orders. The reaction of iPhone fans was not as strong as before, online tech communities were quiet, and no crashed online store servers were reported.

"There are many factors," Kim Yung-rak, who operates a smartphone retail shop in Seoul, told Aju News, adding many customers have changed their smartphones in the last six months. He said potential buyers probably have no reason to stick to iPhones because Samsung and other South Korean companies stole iPhone fans with new models.

"Samsung and LG released a bunch of fascinating top-of-the-line smartphones which were popular among customers who wanted to change their phones," Kim said.

The news of iPhone 8's battery malfunction has also influenced tech-savvy consumers in South Korea. Reports of swelling batteries inside the new iPhone were enough to scare consumers who already have seen Samsung's exploding Galaxy Note 7 batteries in September 2016.

"I'll wait a few months until Apple sorts out the battery problem. If they don't, I will buy Samsung or LG smartphones," said CrunchBar, a user from South Korea's major online IT community Clien.