Apple’s new music streaming service and news service unveiled at the Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday are again not available for Korean users.
The American tech giant recently held its developer conference - a big annual get-together for the company's software partners - and unveiled the much-anticipated music streaming service "Apple Music" available on both iOS and Android.
It also unveiled new news-reading app pulling in articles from various publications and also integrate graphics, photos, and video. At the conference, new mobile operating system “iOS9,” and smartwatch operating system “WatchOS 2” were also introduced.
However, the main services "Apple Music" and "Apple News" will again shun Korean users, who buy its products at the same price as consumers in the U.S., Japan and China but can use only limited functions.
Its new music streaming service Apple Music is slated to be available in 100 nations from this month but Korea will be exempted from the list, according to the local media outlets. The American tech giant has not yet been in discussion with local music providers, according to market watchers.
The limited service of the American tech giant in Korea is not the first time. Its representative iTunes service has been available in around 100 countries but not in Korean account. Some local iPhone users are using the service through other accounts such as America or Hong Kong.
Apart from the music streaming service, the news service will also not be available in the domestic market. Unlike Google, which has built partnerships with local media outlets, Apple has shown no willingness to make forays into the local market.
Apple’s overt discrimination against Korean users reflects a stark difference from its attitude toward other users in Korea’s neighboring countries like China and Japan. In 2013, when there was a controversy related to its maintenance service in China, Apple’s chief Tim Cook made an official apology to Chinese consumers.
In Japan, Apple also allows partial repair of the phone at its Genius Bar, which isn’t available in Korea. Partial repair means when the display is broken users can replace only the display but Korean users should re-purchase secondhand phones called refurbished phone.
Apple’s such discrimination has been long-time controversies here and raised by a local civic group. There are few stores and maintenance centers directly operated by Apple in South Korea. Despite the growing number of local buyers since the launch of iPhone 6, it still has no willingness to open the stores here.
Recently, Korea’s Fair Trade Commission pointed out Apple’s maintenance service but its non-legal binding couldn’t draw any changes from the tech company.
“Apple is ignoring Korean consumers,” said Park Ji-ho, an official from the Citizens' Coalition for Economic Justice.
“Due to the inconvenience in maintenance service, Korean users have pay much again to buy secondhand phones when it is broken even though they already bought costly iPhone,” he said.
Meanwhile, Apple has been the biggest beneficiary here since the implementation of the Telecom Act. The sales of Apple’s iPhones doubled last year from the previous year in South Korea since the implementation of the Telecom Act that caps handset subsidies last October. Market watchers say as Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics lost cost competitiveness with limited subsidies, more consumers have moved to iPhones.
According to ATLAS Research and Consulting, Apple’s market share in the local smartphone market increased to 20 to 30 percent from October and reached a record 410,000 units in sales last November and hit 300,000 units until early this year. During the same period, Samsung and LG all saw a decline in the local smartphone market.
