A 300-kilometer trek for a 5 million won phone: Meet the first Korean buyers of the iPhone Duo 

The line was shorter than it was expected to be.

Maybe it was the foldable’s steep price, or maybe it was because Apple was launching its new form factor on its biggest rival’s home turf. Either way, instead of the lines that once crowded the streets for hours before an iPhone release, fewer than a dozen people were waiting outside the store on the morning of D-Day.

Still, the iPhone Duo’s debut in Korea showed that Apple’s devoted fans will turn out for the company’s new form factor, whatever the price.

It was a chilly October morning on Friday when this reporter arrived at Apple’s Myeongdong store in Jung District, central Seoul, to see who the lucky first owners of the handset would be.

This reporter arrived at the scene at 7:10 a.m., a little less than an hour before the doors of Apple's largest store in Korea were due to swing open to greet eager buyers. She arrived bracing to find a crowd of Apple enthusiasts. To her surprise, however, the scene was much more subdued: There were only 11 people standing in line. 

The very first person among them was Park Seong-geon, a content creator who chose the Night Sky color with 256GB of storage and became the first Duo buyer in Korea. He already owns two other iPhones, a 16 and an 18 Pro Max.

Park was the second buyer of the 18 Pro Max a month ago and he wanted to break the record to become No. 1. He did it by arriving at the store at 2:40 p.m. the day before the Duo's Korea debut. 

“What I want most from the Duo is versatility,” Park said. “I can use it like a large iPad when I’m shooting, and I can write on it too. […] It’s over 3 million won [$2,263], but given that versatility and the productivity, I think it’s a reasonable price worth considering, especially with the current chip situation.”

Like everywhere else, preorders for the iPhone Duo sold out in Korea in just 40 minutes when they opened on Oct. 16. Shoppers who ordered afterward face a three-month wait, with Apple’s websites showing delivery by late January.

That meant no walk-ins to buy the handset. Only customers who reserved a device can receive it, either in person at the store or by delivery. About 30,000 units were reportedly released for the initial preorder in Korea.

“The line isn’t even half — no, not even a quarter of that — for the iPhone 17 Pro Max, which I also bought at this store,” said Jeong Woo-deok, third in line, waving around his orange iPhone. Jeong proved to be a true die-hard. He had arrived at 3:30 p.m. the day before, traveling some 300 kilometers (186 miles) from Naju in Jeonnam-Gwangju.

The first three buyers in line spent the rest of Thursday outside the Apple Store, eating dinner outside that was ordered via a delivery app. Apple let them wait inside the store overnight and handed out hand warmers against the cold.

Jeong bought the Duo in Star White with the largest storage option, 2TB, bringing his bill to 5.09 million won.

“Honestly, things have gotten a lot more comfortable than in the past because Korea is now in the first wave of launches,” said Jeong, who added that he has never strayed from Apple and has used only iPhones since the third generation. “All I had to do was come to the Myeongdong store. That’s nothing compared to before, when I would travel to Japan or even the United States to get my hands on the latest device faster.”

As the 8 a.m. opening approached, the line did grow long enough to spill out of the store building. It still fell well short of what Jeong described for the iPhone 17 Pro Max pickup — two long lines had already formed by 6 a.m. Apple Korea said about 100 buyers had gathered before the doors opened, and 200 customers in total visited the store for the next two hours to pick up their reserved Duos.

Price did not seem to trouble anyone this reporter spoke to. For foldables, Korea is Samsung’s territory, and the company got a head start in the wider foldable format by releasing the Galaxy Z Fold 8 two months before Apple’s launch.

Samsung courted buyers with a lower price tag and a lighter body. The Duo weighs 254 grams (9 ounces) — 53 grams more than the Fold 8 — and the starting prices of the two phones are more than 100 million won apart. The crowd, ardent Apple fans that they are, waved those factors aside. They trusted that Apple had entered the field only after concluding that the foldable market had matured.

“I can’t wait to head to the office and try it out — I hear it will be updated to support Apple Pencil, and I hope that comes soon,” Park said after receiving the Duo. “It's a bit thicker than I expected but other than that, it’s perfect. Folded, it fits in my hand, and unfolded, it’s bigger than I thought.”

Inside the store, a quiet calm was mixed with excitement. Whenever a buyer had a story worth sharing, Apple Store employees would shout, cheer and pass it on to the crowd, as is the custom at Apple stores. One story involved a customer who had come back to Apple for a Duo after buying the Fold 8.

“He’s our seventh Duo buyer, and interestingly, he had bought a Fold 8 but has returned to Apple with the Duo — everyone, let’s root for him to use it well!” the employee said, standing next to the buyer, who looked as if he wanted to escape all the attention.

Another Apple loyalist, Park Hyuk-young, said he has long been locked into the Apple ecosystem with a MacBook, an Apple Watch and iPhones. For him, screen quality was one of the key reasons to buy an Apple foldable.

“What appeals to me is that Apple reinterpreted an existing form factor with a higher level of polish, in its own way,” said Park, who bought a 512GB Night Sky Duo. “I also dislike the plastic film texture on other foldable screens.”

The iPhone Duo comes in two colors, Star White and Night Sky. Prices start at 3.29 million won, and storage options range from 256GB to 2TB.

BY LEE JAE-LIM [[email protected]]