South Korea welcomes the iPhone

South Koreans will soon join the millions of others worldwide as its government on Wednesday approved the sale of the iPhone there.

(Credit: Apple)

For years, the Korea Communications Commission used technical rules to stifle competition, allowing homegrown companies like Samsung and LG to take over the market, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

With an estimated 93 percent of South Korea's population subscribing to a mobile service, Apple should be able to overcome one of the biggest barriers to smartphone success in South Korea--applications. Apple has been able to entice developers worldwide to build apps for the iPhone, with 75,000 apps available and 1.8 billion apps downloaded thus far.

There was no indication of a release date, price, or carrier for the iPhone yet in South Korea.

This is the second piece of news related to international iPhone sales in less than a month. Apple landed a deal with China Unicom in late August to begin selling the iPhone in that country. Apple is also in talks with China Mobile, that country's largest wireless carrier with 141 million subscribers.