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Taiwan manufacturer, HTC, made it to be the first foreign handset maker to sell smartphone in Korean market. The HTC Touch Dual is available for subscribers of country’s largest operator, SK Telecom. For now, the phone is only being offered to corporate customers, but around this week individual customer will be able to grab it.

SK Telecom optimists that the Touch Dual can be a major hit this year. “The target of 100,000 units is not an outrageous goal. In today’s market, there are popular handset models selling more than 10,000 per day,” said Chung Dae-hyun, director of SK Telecom’s sales division.

The price is actually quite high, about 600K Won (US$ 572), but subsidies will allow customer to pay for only 300K Won (US$ 286). Until now, Korean market is controlled by local manufacturers, lead by Samsung, LG, and Pantech. Only American’s Motorola and Japan’s Casio that be able to sell their products in Korea, but they don’t sell smartphones.

One thing to be noted, this is the first smartphone ever to brake Korean market barrier. As before, Blackberry (in cooperation with SK Telecom) has made breakthrough to sell their products in August. SK Telecom and KTF-the first and second largest operators-are very aggressive nowadays to attract foreign mobile makers to enter Korean market.

The largest barrier is government policy, requires every phone sold in Korea need to be WIPI-compliance. It is definitely hard to ask foreign makers following this rules since Korean market counted only 2% among global market. But now, seems like KCC-the Korean telecommunication regulator-finally gives up.

Shin Yong-sub, the director of KCC’s broadcasting policy division said:

“It is true that we are currently reevaluating our WIPI policy, including the arguments whether we should continue to mandate handset makers to use the software. The matter will be eventually discussed in our executive committee.”

As for now, Korean operators are in intensive talk to bring Nokia and Apple iPhone 3G to Korea market. Will foreign makers be able to conquer Korean market? Only time and customers can decide it.

Source: Korea Times