Maxis held its midnight launch of the eagerly-awaited flagship smartphone from Apple, the iPhone 5, earlier. Being one of three major telcos having midnight launches for the iPhone 5, but unlike DiGi who have a delivery option for its pre-orders, those who booked their iPhone 5s with Maxis could pick them up during the launch event which was held in Pikom ICT Mall here in Kuala Lumpur. As one of the most popular smartphones to belatedly arrive on our shores, the response, naturally, was unbelievable.
More on Maxis’ iPhone 5 launch after the break.
We arrived at the Pikom ICT Mall at about 8.20pm, by which time the line had about 200 people. We managed to chat with the first person on the line, Mr. Chin, and he told us he had taken the day off work and had been on the line since 10am with his wife. At 10.30pm, the line had just about doubled the length when we first arrived. By the time we left at close to 1.30am, 90 minutes after the launch, incredibly, the line had only marginally cleared. Compared to the two other telco launches, this was by far the one with the largest crowd. You can follow our blow-by-blow account of our coverage on Twitter here.
As the first local telco to bring the iPhone to Malaysia three years ago, Maxis is proud to maintain its standing as one of Malaysia’s premier telcos. This time, it has introduced the new iValue postpaid data plan bundles for the new iPhone 5. Featuring five pretty competitive plans, Maxis is pretty confident there is an iValue plan for every user. (You can check how the iValue plans fare against the other iPhone 5 plans on our comprehensive comparison table here.) With these plans, customers can get the iPhone 5 for as low as RM1099 (16GB model).
That’s not all. T. Kugan, head of product, device, innovation and roaming at Maxis, also announced several additions to sweeten the deal for those interested in getting an iValue data bundle with the iPhone 5. For example, Passbook has been integrated with the location-based Maxis Rewards app, which provides Maxis customers special services, privileges, discount vouchers and more. In addition, there is also a two-month trial of Maxis OneMusic, Malaysia’s largest localised digital music library. Users can download unlimited amounts of songs for free during this trial.
There are also Maxis-exclusive apps such as Visual Voicemail, which allows customers to manage their voicemails visually via an app instead of dialing their voicemail service, and also a 30-day trial for Maxis Traffic, which offers live video feeds of current traffic conditions in specific areas to users’ iPhone 5s. Also, Maxis has also revamped its customer service app for better user experience.
Maxis also had good news for existing iValue customers and Maxis One Club customers. Existing iValue customers will all automatically be upgraded to the new and better iValue plans, while Maxis Once Club customers will get an additional discount for the iPhone 5 if they opt for an iValue Plan 2 or above. Finally, all Maxis iOS customers will get free 10GB of Maxis’ Loker cloud storage facility.
The iPhone 5 can now be booked at selected Maxis outlets nationwide. For more information on Maxis’ iPhone 5 plans, head on to its website here.
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