Site crashes as iPhone fans make 130,000 pre-orders

KT Corp., the exclusive provider of the iPhone in Korea, said Wednesday that the number of people who made pre-orders for Apple’s iPhone 4 surpassed 130,000 in the first 13 hours of registration.

The number of people applying for the new model sharply increased from 40,000 as of 8:55 a.m. to over 60,000 as of 9:45 a.m., KT officials said. It then reached 100,000 people as of 1 p.m., and 130,000 as of 7 p.m. 　

The country’s No. 2 mobile carrier started taking in applications at its website and its 2,900 shops nationwide beginning at 6 a.m.

The exact date of launch, which is only known as sometime in September, has yet to be specified.

“We will make utmost efforts for the launch and delivery of the new model,” Pyo Hyun-myung, president of the mobile business group at KT, said on his micro-blogging site Twitter.