Apple's new iPhone series hit the stores in South Korea on Friday after Samsung Electronics' fiasco with report of some of Galaxy Note 7 smartphones catching fire and overheating.
The iPhone 7 and the larger-screen iPhone 7 Plus went on sale both online and offline, according to local media reports.
Preorders here for iPhone 7 series, which had begun a week earlier, more than doubled the figures for the predecessor iPhone 6 series, indicating owners of Samsung's Note 7 phones may have moved to the new Apple devices.
Samsung decided last week to stop production and sales of the Galaxy Note 7 phablet as cases of the devices catching fire and overheating were reported even from replacement phones following the initial global recall in early September of about 2.5 million Note 7s.
Despite Samsung's fiasco with its new device, expectations remain uncertain for new iPhone sales in South Korea as reports of new iPhones catching fire began to be reported.
An Australian surfer, Mat Jones, reportedly claimed that his iPhone 7 inside his car burst into flames, destroying his car. He said the phone was bought a week ago and that he hadn't used a foreign charger.
