“iPhone 5 pre-orders have shattered the previous record held by iPhone 4S and the customer response to iPhone 5 has been phenomenal,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “iPhone 5 is the best iPhone yet, the most beautiful product we’ve ever made, and we hope customers love it as much as we do. – Apple Inc ”

Within the first hour of pre-order, Apple has more than 2 millions units of iPhone 5 pre-orderd, breaking its previous record of 1 million units of iPhone 4S pre-ordered during the  first day of availability. Last year Apple sold 4 million iPhone 4S after its opening weekend and this coming Monday, Apple might be announcing the sales number for iPhone 5 after its opening weekend.

It seems that the trend for Apple is that the less exciting and WOW-effect for iPhone launch, the more iPhones that Apple can sell. Definitely not a good news for tech geeks who are expecting more innovations from Apple. My another guess is that many fence-sitters are waiting for iPhone to be more ‘matured’ before buying it. Why pay the same amount for a phone that has lesser features, right? This group are not like the early adopters group and they are large in numbers.

Malay Mail claims that iPhone 5 will be release in Malaysia on 26th October based on industry sources. This claim has some credibility since Apple usually launch its iPhones on Fridays and 26th October is Friday. It further states that all major telecommunication players, namely Maxis, DiGi and Celcom will launch the iPhone 5 at the same time with their own packages and data bundles.

“If orders remain within projections made by Apple by Sept 30, the Oct 26 launch date in Malaysia together with several other countries will remain,” noted an industry source.

“Should there be a shortfall in available supplies, the Malaysian launch date could get pushed to sometime in November.”

Still, the release date for iPhone 5 depends on the demand and supply of the phone. If the demand is very strong, the iPhone 5 launch date in Malaysia and other countries might be pushed back even further to somewhere in November. If this happens, my prediction that iPhone 5 might launch in Malaysia somewhere late November or early December or middle December 2012 might come true.   Continue reading →