New iPhone Draws Big Crowds as Sales Begin in Asia-Pacific
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Version 0 of 1. SYDNEY — The Apple iPhone 5 went on sale across Asia on Friday, with mobile carriers reporting record demand, leading at least one to question Apple’s supply capacity. KDDI, a Japanese carrier, said that it had already run out of the new phone. In Australia, Telstra reported that online preorders sold out in a record 18 hours and that it was discussing accelerated restocking with Apple. When the iPhone 5 first went on sale, last Friday in the United States, Apple booked more than 2 million preorders in the first 24 hours, double the first-day sales of the previous model, the iPhone 4S. An estimated 600 people lined up around the block from the Apple store in central Sydney, the first in the world to hand over an iPhone 5 to a buyer, at 8 a.m. local time Friday (Apple planned to deliver the first preordered phones to U.S. customers later in the day). The Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, in Brisbane, Australia, for a business forum, was among a crowd of several hundred lining up for an iPhone 5. “I just feel this impulse, like I want to be part of this big adventure, this big revolution and this advance in technology,” Mr. Wozniak, who stopped working for Apple in the late 1980s, told local television. Masayoshi Son, president of Softbank, the other of the two Japanese carriers selling the phone, said he was concerned that Apple does not have enough production capacity to meet demand. Softbank and Singapore Telecommunications, also known as SingTel, said demand for the iPhone 5 had exceeded previous offerings from Apple, partly because the new phones could work on 4G networks that offer much faster data speeds. Samsung Electronics of South Korea, both a rival and a component supplier to Apple, moved to crash the party on the eve of the phone’s debut, saying it planned to add the new device to existing patent lawsuits against the U.S. technology company. In Singapore, SingTel had booths open selling accessories and staff on hand to help buyers transfer data from their old phones, while in a rainy Tokyo, the lines stretched several blocks. In Hong Kong, whose proximity to China supports a thriving gray market, small groups of people carrying rucksacks filled with cash waited outside the Apple store hoping to snap up phones for resale. The introductions of the iPhone 5 were more tightly controlled by Apple than the release of the iPhone 4S in 2010, resulting in a more subdued atmosphere — most of the noise in Hong Kong came from staff members, who outnumbered customers and chanted “iPhone 5, iPhone 5.” In Sydney, guerrilla marketers grabbed the first dozen or so spots in line, with companies paying staff members to line up for several days in the hope of being photographed and interviewed. But most of those waiting were aficionados already hooked on Apple’s earlier iPhones and iPad tablet computers. “I feel like if I leave it at home, I go a bit crazy,” James Vohradsky, a 20-year-old student said of his current iPhone. He had been in line for 17 hours with his younger sister “I have to drive back and get it. I can’t do my normal day without it.” Some analysts expect Apple to sell up to 10 million of the iPhone 5 in the remaining days of September and J.P. Morgan has estimated that the phone release could provide a $3.2 billion boost to the U.S. economy in the fourth quarter. The new phone has a larger, 4-inch screen and is slimmer and far lighter than the previous model. The iPhone 5 supports faster 4G mobile networks and also comes with a number of software updates, including Apple’s new in-house maps feature. “It’s thin and light. I’ve used Samsung before, but the operation, the feeling of the iPhone is better,” Wataru Saito said of the iPhone 5. The semiconductor engineer had been waiting line in Tokyo since Thursday afternoon with his suitcase because he had a flight to catch Friday. Some buyers were not completely happy. The iPhone 5 comes with Apple’s own mapping software; previous models used maps from Google. Kim Tudo, a student at the University of New South Wales who had lined up overnight in Sydney, said he was disappointed that the turn-by-turn navigation feature was not immediately available in Australia. Apple also did not embed near-field communication technology used to turn cellphones into mobile wallets in the iPhone 5. Mr. Vohradsky, also a student in Sydney, said the lack of mobile payment chip was also “a bit of a letdown.” The iPhone is Apple’s highest-margin product and accounts for half of its annual revenue. Apple has said it will make initial deliveries of the iPhone 5 on Friday in the United States and most of the major European markets, like France, Germany and Britain. The phone goes on sale next Friday in 22 more countries. Apple plans to sell the new phone in 100 countries by the end of the year. |