The smartphone subsidy war rose to a new high over the three-day Lunar New Year weekend with mobile carriers KT and LG Uplus attempting to take a greater number of customers from SK Telecom.
With SKT, the country’s top mobile carrier, banned from taking new customers for 22 days until Feb. 21, its competitors launched marketing activities offering up to 800,000 won ($730) in subsidies for various handsets such as Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy S3.
The legal limit for subsidies set by the government is 270,000 won.
A number of online posts, however, indicated that customers could get the latest lineup of smartphones in the 300,000 won range by making online registrations followed by visits to the mobile outlets.
The available smartphones included Samsung’s Galaxy S3, Galaxy Note 2, LG Electronics’ Optimus G, Optimus Vu 2, Apple’s iPhone 5 and Pantech’s Vega S6 and Vega R3.
“I got my Galaxy Note 2 with the start of the holiday because the pricing was much cheaper than I had expected,” said a 26-year-old Seoulite who wished to be identified only by her surname Park.
Park also said that the pricing had halved from when her friend bought a smartphone at about 600,000 won with the switch of her mobile carrier in mid-January.
According to industry sources, KT and LG Uplus lured 133,202 customers from Jan. 31-Feb. 7. LG Uplus, which was the first telecom to go through business suspension, lost 140,000 of its customers to its rivals during its 24-day sales ban period last month.
As a result, LG Uplus, which is currently the No. 2 player in terms of LTE services, started pouring out subsidies to keep from losing more of its subscribers and draw more to the firm.
KT is not an exception in the subsidy battle as the country’s second-biggest mobile carrier is still third in LTE services, lagging behind SKT and LG Uplus. But it will also be banned from taking new customers for 20 days from Feb. 22-March 13.
As of the end of January, SKT secured 8.3 million LTE subscribers, followed by LG Uplus and KT with 4.6 million and 4.48 million, respectively.
By Cho Ji-hyun (
sharon@heraldcorp.com)
