When will the iPhone 5 launch in the Philippines?

Almost every major tech company has already announced launch dates or actually launched their latest offerings already in time for December here in the Philippines. There’s one particular model though that hasn’t seen the light of day yet “officially”. For some strange reason Apple’s iPhone 5 still isn’t being offered by the networks locally. There was a lot of talk going on in the industry that the iPhone 5 would launch before December but it looks like that’s not happening anymore since we’re at the tail end of November already and there’s no buzz whatsoever about the iPhone 5 anymore.

Buzzkilled: Smart and Globe Under a Gag Order from Apple?

What’s even stranger is that both Smart Communications and Globe have gone extremely silent about it which is weird since they were going crazy with their teasers just a few months ago. Just recently Smart had a “Bite into the Better Network” campaign featuring several celebrities biting an Apple. They even released videos about it on YouTube. However the videos were set to private already as of this writing and the billboards were taken down shortly after they went up. Globe has also gone under the radar. The last we’ve heard from them was that iPhone 5 unit that was given to Zac Efron when he visited the Philippines.

One can only surmise that Apple probably gave both telcos a smackdown and told them to keep quiet until a few days were left until launch day.

Will it finally launch in December?

So when will it launch? Well there are a lot of tech writers and bloggers who are saying that it will launch this December. I have to agree with them because this is almost the same time that they launched the iPhone 4S last year. It will still probably sell well since there are a lot of Apple fanboys in the Philippines. However some might doubt that the demand would be as high since the Galaxy S3 is selling well (local Otterbox distributor said that it is their best-selling case and this was backed up by S3 accessory sellers too) and PH brands like Cherry Mobile and Starmobile are making waves with their budget-friendly offerings. Personally I think it will still do well but not much more than what the iPhone 4S did in sales.

Anyway, back to the original question. Whatever happened to the iPhone 5 PH launch? Obviously delayed (in so far as original estimates pegged it at November at the latest). With both telcos eerily silent about it though one can’t help but think that we might even have to wait until January. Hopefully though it will finally launch December.

iPhone 5 Review Next Week
We’ve had the iPhone 5 for more than a month now and we haven’t released a review yet since we were hoping to publish it when the telcos started making noise again. However I think we run the risk of the story going stale, haha! Watch out for our iPhone 5 review soon. We’ll probably have it out next week.