as moaned and cried through-out this BLog : South Korea ain’t no Apple country . Apple-ppa’s (term stuck from the good-ol’Sony-days depicting die-hard fans of a foreign electronic product) may line-up NOT in actual queue (un-heard-of from the hard days while the nation was developing from the war-torn days) but manicly reloading the web-page when a new iPhone or iPad is about to be released – however this only appears as though Apple is King but for a very short while um like TWO Weeks ???!!!!! as the what-ever reseller stores are virtually empty throughout the rest of the whole year .

add to this Apple has recently allowed local retail conglomerates like eMart and HiMart to sell their products : resulting in the earlier second tier (first were independent stores selling Macs before the influx of iPhone 3GS – a whopping TWO years after the first iPhone was introduced States-side !) Premium (Oh, come-on no such over-rated title please) resellers to shrink (the first of the second tier resellers Frisbee which had swiftly increased to 12 branches by early 2013 is now reducing to 9) and even CLOSE (What-a-name for an Apple reseller ? Concierge operated by LCNC owned by SK Networks for 3 years now) they announced March 13th all branch will close by the end of the Month and has been on a SALE frenzy with good results because the discount is garage sale scale 0o0
140313 컨시어지 Goodbye SALE01

140313 컨시어지 Goodbye SALE02 140313 컨시어지 Goodbye SALE03 140313 컨시어지 Goodbye SALE04
Concierge’s closing schedule above states most will be gone by March’s end, after which only MyeongDong – home-ground of their earlier competitor Frisbee’s – will close shop April 13th Sunday .

Apple’s decision to hand over the baton to local biggies come at a time when iPhones and iPads are steadily becoming rarities in the office as well as commuting subways . the trendies taunted it at the height its reign 2011~2012 (iPhone 4~4S years) but now most have retracted Back to the Future I mean Galaxies .

What the larger retailers have are uncomparably more number of branches AND promotion power, as an iPhone and iPad can be had at a regional super-mart AND while returning from the massive Satellite City of BunDang back the the Capital of SEOUL : I saw a huge advertisement billboard written “iPad Air” on the mammoth ShinSeGae Department Store – South Korea’s first department store of all stores .

but will this bring back sales and fan-base to Apple ? I don’t see so . it is much interesting although in the same Orient : things are much different between here and Japan across the Strait and China across the Sea . the Japanese clerks and technicians at the few Apple Stores in each of its big islands speak their own language i.e., understand AND communicate well with users . the Chinese welcome it as a wonderful foreign product and many youngster sell even body parts to fetch one . but on the Korean Peninsula it is alien – from sales through product, to support . all-the-while iTunes remain an incomprehensible stumbling block here .