AppleInsider Staff
Apple on Monday announced that the iPhone 5 will debut in more than 50 countries this month, including South Korea on Friday, Dec. 7, with Russia, Brazil and Taiwan to follow a week later.
Those additional countries that will gain access to Apple's latest smartphone include China, which Apple announced last week will have the iPhone 5 launch on Dec. 14. The dozens of new countries will join 47 countries where the iPhone 5 is already available for sale.
The full list of countries set to gain the iPhone 5 on Friday, Dec. 14 are: Albania, Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Ecuador, Grenada, Indonesia, Israel, Jamaica, Jordan, Kuwait, Macedonia, Malaysia, Moldova, Montenegro, Panama, Paraguay, Philippines, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Taiwan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela.
iPhone 5 will also be available on Friday, December 21 in Barbados, Botswana, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Egypt, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius, Morocco, Niger, Senegal, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, St.Vincent & the Grenadines, Tunisia, Uganda, and Vietnam.
Monday's announcement also confirms an earlier report that claimed Apple would launch the iPhone 5 in Taiwan on Dec. 14. It was said that all major Taiwanese carriers would begin accepting preorders a week prior.
International expansion of the iPhone 5 comes as Apple has begun to catch up with supply in countries such as the U.S., where the handset launched in September. Last week, Apple also began selling an unlocked version of the iPhone 5 through its online store in America.
Stephen Silver
Charles Martin
Christine McKee
Malcolm Owen
9 Comments
For the people in those countries I do hope they have the same release schedule when the next iPhone hits the market in 2013. If they up it, they won't be out of their 1 or 2 year contract.
[quote name="PhilBoogie" url="/t/154738/iphone-5-to-launch-in-south-korea-brazil-dozens-more-countries-in-december#post_2240580"]For the people in those countries I do hope they have the same release schedule when the next iPhone hits the market in 2013. If they up it, they won't be out of their 1 or 2 year contract.[/quote] While that is what everyone would like to see, a world wide launch of a product. I dont think that is even technically possible without sinking in huge amount of money. It could be possible on a refinement model like the iPhone 4S and iPhone 5S ( if that is coming ). Since this model are retuned and refined in manufacturing efficiency. And are generally less interested due to similar designs. But we are still talking about 50M+ unit in the first month. Double of what currently Apple are doing. Not only will Foxconn have to figure out how to assemble them quickly enough, the supply chain will also have to supply enough parts per month to make up for this.
For the people in those countries I do hope they have the same release schedule when the next iPhone hits the market in 2013. If they up it, they won't be out of their 1 or 2 year contract.
Outside North America, getting a new cell phone isn't dependent on a contract with a carrier.
Outside North America, getting a new cell phone isn't dependent on a contract with a carrier.
That doesn't sound 100% accurate.
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