SEOUL, KOREA – Cold waves are sweeping through the Korean smartphone case industry. Slower-than-expected sales of the iPhone5 have resulted in a slump in demand for mobile phone cases. Since global makers have enjoyed early mover advantages in the phone case market, ratcheting up a SME’s market share is not easy. Korean small- and medium-sized smartphone case makers are sighing over inventory pileups.
In expectation of sales of the iPhone reaching 1.5 million to 2 million, they have churned out iPhone 5 cases in large quantities, but its sales fell far short of their projections, thereby swelling their inventories to a great extent.
On top of that, their failure in shipping products to the market in the earliest possible manner is also to blame. Generally, sales of smartphone cases peak in the first one or two months of new smartphone release. Since Apple provides a sketch of its new models’ exterior design only to a handful of its partners like Incase, global phone accessory makers can put their smartphone cases on the market simultaneously with the release of Apple’s new models.
Sean Chung (hbpark@etnews.com)
**Article provided by etnews [Korea IT News]
[Reference] : http://english.etnews.com/electronics/2715655_1303.html
