In May Patently Apple posted a report titled "Tim Cook Surprisingly Admits on TV that Apple wants to sell Certified Pre-Owned iPhones in India." The Indian TV interviewer was taken aback as he viewed Apple's position as dumping old iPhones into their country, something that many in India were offended by without really understanding Apple's methodology of how they repackage refurbished iPhones back to premium condition. If you've ever brought in a recent iPhone in under warranty for a problem, you know that Apple instantly replaces it with a refurbished one that comes out of box like brand new iPhone. You'd never know it was a refurbished iPhone. Yet there's a stigma associated by that in the media and in the general public, something that Apple will have to spend some marketing dollars on to clarify this new side market. This week the Korean market reacted to refurbished iPhones entering their country as well.

A Korean report published this week stated that "Apple's refurbished iPhones are spreading throughout South Korean markets and this is a result of 'premium and inexpensive phones' becoming more popular among markets. Although there aren't a whole lot of them yet, the situation could change rapidly depending on popularity. South Korea's cellphone manufacturers are making careful attentions to see how this situation affects their sales of new products.

SK Telink made an announcement on June 15 that it started selling refurbished iPhone 6 Plus models and will be selling it on limited basis until the end of August. Store price of 64GB refurbished iPhone 6 Plus is set at $671 (784,000 KRW) and this is about $231 (270,000 KRW) cheaper than a normal iPhone 6 Plus.

Apple's refurbished phones were mostly used for AS (After Service) until now. When one brings in a malfunctioned iPhone, he or she receives a refurbished phone in return. Apple fixes phones with phones and return them back just like if they were new. Although a lot of used phones were sold in South Korea, not many refurbished phones were sold in South Korea.

This type of situation started to happen after mobile distribution improvement act was enforced. As people have started to buy more reasonable-priced phones, inexpensive phones especially 'premium and inexpensive phones' started to become more popular.

CJ HelloVision had gone with this trend and made a good performance in April by selling refurbished iPhone 5s. It also had sold refurbished iPhone 6S Plus at the end of last month and its supplies were sold out within just 2 weeks. This was meaningful that it sold all of its supplies through online without any advertisements even though there weren't much supplies to begin with.

South Korea's cellphone manufacturers are not too pleased with increased sales of refurbished iPhones because they can affect sales of new products of theirs.

So before the refurbished iPhone market lands in India, many will be following how this new iPhone segment will do in Korea. While consumers appear to be very happy with this development, only time will tell if this new segment grows the overall iPhone market in Korea or hurts the sales of new iPhones. It's a little too early to judge this development, despite some initial and limited retailer backlash.

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