iPhone 4 coming to Thailand September 23

This coming Thursday will see the much anticipated arrival of the iPhone 4 in Thailand months after neighbouring Asian countries first received the device.

The phone will be available through more telecom operators than ever before with AIS joining DTAC and original partner True to offer Apple’s flagship mobile device in Thailand.

Full details, including information of related press releases, can be found over at Richard Barrow‘s Using an iPhone in Thailand blog from where the snippet below comes:

TrueMove will be holding a Midnight Launch Party starting at 10 p.m. on Thursday 23rd September 2010. The iPhone 4 will then be officially launched after midnight on the 24th September. This will take place at Royal Paragon Hall at Siam Paragon. Bad news is that it is by invitation only.

At least we now know that the launch of the iPhone 4 in Thailand is imminent. The question is, will there be enough handsets for everyone? Take the case of Taiwan where the iPhone 4 is being launched tomorrow. Over 200,000 customers have pre-ordered the iPhone 4 however not all we get one tomorrow. This is because only 45,000-60,000 of the devices are available! I wonder how it is going to be handled here in Thailand.

I’m with Richard in anticipating that there will be huge issue supplying the demand for a new device.

My question is how they deal with allocating handsets as I’ve heard of major issues in the past with those registered early on the list being overlooked for newer registered customers or VIP customers.

Given that there are now three carriers offering the device customer service during the launch and with new customers should be an important issue for operators as a disgruntled person awaiting a handset from True now has the opportunity to try their luck with DTAC or AIS as well.

Unfortunately the competition does not extend to handset pricing though it remains to be seen whether operations will be competitive with tariffs for the iPhone 4.

Of course there’s no point mentioning 3G at this stage but an iPhone 4 without 3G is like buying a Ferrari with a pedal transmission. More news is expected on the upcoming license auction this week, let’s hope that by some miracle it is possibly else experts are expecting there could an additional delay of one to two years or more.

A quick rant on the competitive point: shout out to True who has already lost a little on me for failing to realise that English language bloggers, as well as their Thai counterparts, might be interested in an iPhone 4 blogger day which took place yesterday.

Richard caught images and information via Twitter while my polite request asking if I might qualify to attend was not responded to, even after I contacted a member of True’s marketing team.

Yes, True was the original iPhone supplier in Thailand, but given the increased competition the company should be doing all it can to align itself with the phone – even an event in Thai would be of interest for non-Thai bloggers, while an explanatory mail isn’t difficult to send in response to an inquiry. Rant over.

---

---

---