The new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are now officially in Malaysia. As is the norm every year, Malaysian iPhone fans thronged in the hundreds to the various midnight launches organised by the major local telcos. This year, excited fans braved the rainy weather and long queues to be among the first official owners of the new iPhones.
By far, DiGi organised the largest iPhone 6 event out of the three major telcos. The company actually organised simultaneous events across several cities throughout the country, with the main event being held in Paradigm Mall, where the six QueLi were unveiled. There were food and drinks served throughout the event, which began at 8pm, while a live stream was even aired YouTube from 11pm.
As you might remember, DiGi’s QueLi contest was awarded to six lucky winners “the ultimate VIP iPhone experience”. As the night’s events went on, the QueLi, who were revealed to be six popular Malaysian bloggers and YouTube stars including Joseph Germani, Charis Ow and Marianne Tan, were requested to do various tasks by the six winners all in the name of good fun. As the clock ticked to midnight, the six winners were presented with their brand new iPhones together with some freebies.
Meanwhile, Celcom’s midnight launch event for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus which took place at its Blue Cube outlet in Sunway Pyramid was more or less similar to the telco’s launch event for iPhone 5 in 2012. That being said, there were certainly more people in the queue this time around despite the heavy rain.
Even more amazing is that the first person in the queue, Max Liew Zi Yi who was an iPhone 4 user prior to his iPhone 6 purchase through the telco, was already at the outlet since 6:00pm on Tuesday, 4 November – 18 hours before the official launch. Luckily for him, Celcom offered the first six customers in line the chance to buy the iPhone of their choice for only RM6.
Furthermore, the first 100 customers at the launch event also received freebies from the telco. At the same time, Belkin and TecProtec were also there to support the event.
Over at Maxis, despite not actually holding an event, many lined up to pick up their new iPhone at KLCC, Maxis focused on its Midnight Express delivery service, where the company promised to deliver the new iPhone 6 to selected customers anywhere they were at the stroke of midnight. One of these customers was in for a surprise when Maxis CEO Morten Lundal himself delivered the iPhone to him just as he entered the cinema hall to catch a midnight movie. As it turned out, Maxis “hijacked” the entire hall for this stunt, and gave other movie-goes in the hall free movie tickets for their troubles.
The next day, it was the official retailers’ turn. Long lines formed in front of Apple resellers such as Machines, Switch, Mac City and many others ahead of the 10am store opening times. Most of these outlets had limited stocks for the new iPhones, but it did not deter these determined fans to wait for hours before being able to place an order.
Despite being one of the quieter iPhone launches in recent years, it appears the Malaysian iPhone fanbase remains high.
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