Office worker Park, a person surnamed Park, is using LG Uplus' 90,000-won range plan. Park recently saw a notice that said "we support 11,000 won per month for a smartwatch plan" and applied on the LG Uplus online shop to open a Galaxy Watch 8 Ultra (899,800 won) with a 48-month contract. But the next day Park received guidance from the call center saying "for new smartwatch subscriptions, you must pay the device price immediately to complete activation," and canceled the application. Device upgrades or number transfers can be paid in installments, but only new subscriptions have a different payment method, which was a burden.
Checking the online shops of the three mobile carriers—SK Telecom, KT, and LG Uplus—shows that when opening a smartwatch as a new subscription, they accept the device price only as "immediate payment." Even for the same product, device upgrades or number transfers offer an option to split the cost into installments for up to 48 months and include it in the phone bill, but new activations are structured so that the installment option is blocked from the payment stage. From the consumer's perspective, the question naturally arises: "Why is only new subscription an exception?"
Installment limits differ by carrier. KT requires immediate payment from new subscribers for products over 700,000 won, and SK Telecom does so for products over 900,000 won. In contrast, LG Uplus broadly restricts installment purchases for new subscriptions regardless of price.
A representative case is the Galaxy Watch 8 Classic (599,500 won). If you attempt a new activation on the three carriers' online shops, KT and SK Telecom allow installments up to 48 months, but with LG Uplus you must pay the device price immediately to proceed. For the Galaxy Watch 8 Ultra (899,800 won), only SK Telecom allows installment purchases for new subscriptions. The Apple Watch Ultra 3, with a list price of 1,249,000 won, is blocked from installment purchases for new subscriptions at all three carriers.
Carriers cite "non-activation risk" as the reason for restricting installments for new subscriptions online. They say there have been many cases where, after receiving the device by courier, the subscriber did not go through the activation procedure, so the line never opened. For number transfers or device upgrades, there is an existing number and administrative control on the system side, leaving room to process with measures like forced activation. But when newly activating a smartwatch, if the user does not activate, the carrier has no way to complete the procedure. As a result, the burden of device retrieval, managing installment receivables, and dealing with malicious orders has grown, effectively erecting a "new subscription = immediate payment" shield.
The problem is that this structure can be read by consumers as a signal to "give up online benefits." For smartwatches, purchasing on an online shop often comes with better terms than offline, such as roughly 15% more device support. If installments are closed only to new subscribers, even when buying the same device the initial burden grows, undermining the online channel's price competitiveness itself.
This also conflicts with carriers' policies that put forward smartwatch plan support for high-priced plan subscribers to induce new sign-ups. SK Telecom provides one smartwatch line for free to subscribers on plans of 89,000 won or more, and KT provides one line for free to subscribers on plans of 100,000 won or more. LG Uplus offers an 11,000-won discount to users on plans in the 80,000-won range or higher.
There is also criticism that across-the-board restrictions on new subscribers are excessive. Even within a carrier, the risk differs under the same name of "new subscription," but online they are lumped together and blocked, critics say. Ahn Jeong-sang, adjunct professor at Chung-Ang University Graduate School of Communication, said, "New subscriptions can be divided into two cases: when an existing customer of the carrier newly subscribes, and when a user of another carrier newly subscribes," adding, "If credit information on the carrier's own customer is secured, there is no need to block installment purchases even for new subscriptions."
As the trend of smartwatches moving beyond phone accessories to establish themselves as independent lines becomes clearer, the practice of immediate payment for online new activations is expected to become an even more sensitive issue. A solution is needed that reduces non-activation risk without hindering user growth. For example, alternatives being discussed include opening installments for new subscriptions by existing customers, or allowing installments on the condition of activation within a certain period after delivery.