iPhone 5: Pricing and Release date in Philippines

iPhone 5 teaser in Apple Philippines Website

iPhone 5: the most anticipated phone of the year. And when it went on sale, it immediately became not only the best selling iPhone, but best selling smartphone. It features a lot of first for the iPhone, including a larger display, thinner and lighter body, improved SoC, etc. But when will it be available in the country, and how much would be the damage?

Date of Availability

When Apple announce the iPhone 5, it was initially available in 9 countries including US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and the UK for preorder and went on sale September 21, 2012. It becomes available in 22 more countries after 7 days after, but Philippine launch date of the smartphone hasn't been announced by Apple, nor Globe Telecom and Smart Communications.

If we look on the previous iPhone releases, we can see the trend on how long it takes for the smartphone to be released by the carries in the country.

iPhone generation	US Release Date	Philippine Release Date	No. of days
iPhone 3G	July 11, 2008	Around August 2008	~ 30
iPhone 3GS	June 19, 2009	July 9, 2008	20
iPhone 4	July 24, 2010	September 26, 2010	94
iPhone 4S	October 7, 2011	December 16, 2012	70
iPhone 5	September 21,2012	TBA	N/A

The iPhone 3GS was made available in the country 20 days after it went on sale in the US, while iPhone 4 and 4S took more than 2 months. Looking at the release dates above, the iPhone 5 may be released in the Philippines in late-November or early-December time-frame. This is roughly based on previous release dates, and may be delayed due to rumors that Foxconn, Apple's OEM, is facing production delays due to the new design of the smartphone. One executive in the company said it was the hardest iPhone they have ever assembled since the original.

Pricing

iPhone 5 will probably be priced similarly to the pricing of Globe and Smart postpaid plans when the iPhone 4S went on sale last December, that is P1,799 plus a cash out of 4,800 for unlimited data and P800 consumable for Globe, while P2000 for unlimited data and certain minutes of calls and number of text messages for Smart, both in 16 GB capacity. For the prepaid version, Smart and Globe sell it around P30,000 to P35,000 for the base configuration.