South Korea's top mobile carrier SK Telecom Co. said Thursday its exclusive LUNA smartphone is expected to post 150,000 sales by the end of this month, amid the rising demand for budget handsets here.

The budget smartphone, which made its debut in September, was sold out three weeks after its launch. Launched by TG&Co., the LUNA was manufactured by Foxconn, which is well-known as a key manufacturer of Apple products.

SK Telecom said around 70 percent of the buyers are aged below 30, and current sales stand at 120,000 units.

The 5.5-inch smartphone comes with a full HD display, 8-megapixel rear camera and 2,900mAh battery but costs around only 400,000 won ($344). It can also be as low as around 100,000 won, when incentives from the mobile carrier are included.

The rising presence of budget models in the market followed a law implemented in October 2014 aimed at curbing the amount of discounts mobile carriers can give buyers.

The portion of budget handsets, priced 500,000 won and below, came to 34 percent in the January-October period here, up from the around 20 percent posted a year earlier, the data compiled by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning showed earlier. (Yonhap)