Apple's iPad edges out Samsung in Korea

Apple's iPad is giving Samsung's tablets a run for their money, even in Samsung's home base of Korea.

Sales of the iPad are estimated to have topped 1 million in Korea since the tablet debuted there in November 2010, according to the Korea Herald. Last year's sales alone hit around 700,000.

However, since many Koreans bought the iPad before it was available locally, the total could be much higher than 1 million, noted the Herald.

Samsung does not like to release actual sales figures, but the iPad's share of the Korean market is somewhere between 70 and 80 per cent, far outstripping that of the various Galaxy Tab models, as well as other Android devices.

Around two thirds of the iPads sold in Korea are Wi-Fi only, suggesting to the Herald that consumers don't want to be tied down to data plans with their local carriers.

The news is likely to put smiles on the faces of the higher-ups at Apple, which has been competing with Samsung on a variety of fronts.

The two have been battling for the top spot in the smartphone market, with Apple outscoring Samsung last quarter, but Samsung pulling ahead for the year as a whole.

Both combatants have also been duking it out in the patent courts, with suits and countersuits flying around the world. Apple has launched suits in the US, Germany and in Australia, claiming that Samsung's smartphones and tablets are guilty of patent violation. Samsung in turn has accused Apple of violating key patents related to wireless communications and other technologies.

Apple also kept its lawyers busy last year, arguing that Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 infringes upon the design of the iPad. Both sides have pulled out a variety of tricks trying to make their cases, but lately the judges have sided with Samsung.

A Dutch court ruled in favour of the Korean company last month, finding that the Tab is not guilty of patent infringement. And last late week, a German court found that Samsung's revised version of the Galaxy Tab 10.1, known as the Galaxy Tab 10.1N, could hit store shelves following a call by Apple to ban the tablet.

Via CNET