Strong Thai Demand For Iphone 3gs

[george]

Strong Thai demand for iPhone 3GS

Not enough iPhone 3GS sent to meet local demand

BANGKOK: -- Many customers who booked iPhone 3GS mobile phones will have to wait until the middle of next month because the first shipment from Apple was not enough to go around.

Papon Ratanachaikanont, assistant to the president and CEO of True Move as well as deputy group chief commercial officer of True Corp, said yesterday that more than 10,000 phones had been pre-ordered but Apple only supplied 3,500 of the latest models in the first lot.

The first batch will go to those who had specified tomorrow as the delivery date, though those expecting to pick their phones up from Saturday to next Thursday will have to wait for the next lot.

The new lot is expected to arrive some time next week and should be available from the second week of next month. However, Papon could not say how many 3GS phones would be delivered in the second lot.

Customers having to wait for the second lot will be receive a free iPhone leather case as a kind of consolation for the delayed delivery.

There some 3,500 customers waiting to pick up their phones tomorrow and most of them are in Bangkok.

True Move allowed people to reserve the devices from August 5-24 for a deposit of Bt2,000. The customers could set a date for pick up between August 28 and September 3. The 16-gigabyte 3GS phone costs Bt24,500, while the 32GB model goes for Bt28,500.

Papon said several other countries, such as Australia, Taiwan and Singapore, have also experienced the same shortage mainly due to the higher-than-expected demand for the 3GS model, which is a newer version of the iPhone 3G phone.

Those who want to cancel their order and take their Bt2,000 deposit back can do so at all True Move shops from Tuesday onward.

The supply for local consumers should stabilise next month, Papon said.

True Move should be able to make the phones available at all its shops nationwide on September 11.

Papon is not concerned that the supply shortage would have people to rushing to purchase smuggled 3GS phones.

He said pre-bookings for the 3GS model was three times that of the 3G iPhones early this year.

True Move is the exclusive authorised cellular service provider for 3G iPhones here and expects sales of the 3GS iPhone model to exceed 50,000 units this year.

-- The Nation 2009-08-27

[regedit]

The first batch will go to those who had specified tomorrow as the delivery date

Bangkok Post says priority to those who specified tomorrow for pick-up in Bangkok...

[mjperry]

Not a happy bunny here, pre-ordered a 3GS 32GB in black on the first day the website opened within the first few minutes, live in Bangkok and ordered for pickup yesterday the 28th at Siam Square. Got told I wasn't getting one by phone from True, pissed off I went to Siam Square yesterday anyway to have a moan then went to the head office at True Tower to have a moan also. They claim they only received a limited supply of the black model but had to send them back as they were defective!

Eventually I said fine give me a white one, don't really care, they seemed to have plenty of those, they said they could not do that as they were all allocated to customers already. Bah!

Martin

[ChiangMaiThai]

See my post in the Computers section of the forum. Totally pissed off at True. Why not secure the order AND THEN start scheduling pick up times? Seems like amateur hour again over here.

[nikster]

"Papon is not concerned that the supply shortage would have people to rushing to purchase smuggled 3GS phones."

That's because demand exceeds supply world-wide, and only very few countries even sell unlocked iPhones. The only thing readily available is U.S. locked phones that were jailbroken - not really competitive IMO especially if the price is nearly as much as the True price.

And yes, True mismanaged this whole supply problem in the worst way possible.

Edited September 3, 2009 by nikster