hankyoreh

The new iPad Pro. (provided by LGU+)

Apple has been under fire for forcing mobile phone dealers to buy display (“demo”) models of its newly released iPhones and iPads and not allowing them to sell those models for a certain period of time. And now with the launch of the new iPad Pro on Dec. 7, Apple is continuing this exploitative behavior, the Korea Mobile Distributors Association (KMDA) complained on Dec. 6.

“Dealers are being forced to pay 100% of the price for demo models of the new iPads. Once purchased, the demo models can’t be sold for a whole year,” the KMDA said in a press release issued on Thursday.

“From the perspective of the dealership, this basically means that phones that have been purchased at the full price have to be kept as inventory for a year. Most other manufacturers provide dealers with display models, and only Apple forces dealers to bear the cost of the display models,” the KMDA said.

On Nov. 21, the KMDA released a press release stating that dealers were forced to buy demo phones and prevented from selling them whenever iPhone released a new model. It also asked South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission to investigate this issue.

The Hankyoreh tried emailing and calling Apple to give the company a chance to comment on the KMDA’s statement, but Apple did not return phone calls or reply to emails for nearly ten days.

On Thursday, the KMDA said that SKT would only be selling the new iPad Pro on T World Direct, its online store, without supplying the model to retail outlets and criticized this as discrimination against its network of distributors. KT and LGU+ are selling the models through retailers as well as online.

“We’re only selling them through our online store because Apple has only supplied us with a small amount. If the product volume increases in the future, we plan planning to supply them to our retailers, too” SKT said.

By Kim Jae-seob, senior staff writer

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]

Caption: The new iPad Pro. (provided by LGU+)