[L-R] Syed Sobrie, Celcom’s 1st iPhone 5 customer at Blue Cube Sunway Pyramid and Zalman Aefendy Zainal Abidin, the Chief Marketing Officer of Celcom Axiata Berhad.
Although he was not in the queue for as long as this iPhone 5 customer, Syed Sobrie was already at the venue of the launch since 6pm and was rewarded with the opportunity to purchase the new iPhone 5 for only RM 5 by Celcom. His reason to move from his current BlackBerry Torch 9860 to the new iPhone 5 is relatively simple – he is tired of “that black square” whenever the Torch lagged.
This is just one of the many stories from the iPhone 5’s official arrival into the Malaysian market through the country’s three major telcos which of course, includes Celcom. The company’s iPhone 5 midnight release was spread to five different Blue Cube branches across Peninsular Malaysia: Sunway Pyramid, Laman Seri in Shah Alam, Publika in Dutamas, Taman Molek in Johor Bharu and All Season Place in Penang.
Out of these five branches, the main one took place at Blue Cube Sunway Pyramid and it was rather a low-key occasion. When we arrived into the venue at around 11pm, there were only around 40 customers in the pre-order queue and around 30 more customers were in another queue that was reserved walk-in customers. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t anything to see there though.
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On the other side of the building, the walk-in crowd at Cube (an Apple reseller which is technically attached to Blue Cube Iconic) built up much later than the pre-order queue though. As example, Paul Fu and James Hee only arrived at the venue at slightly after 10pm but still managed to become some of the earliest walk-in customers in the queue.
Interestingly, both of them have actually booked their iPhone 5 with Cube even before Apple announced device’s arrival in Malaysia. Paul is upgrading from iPhone 3GS while James stated he simply need to have one even though he is currently using an iPhone 4S.
During the launch event, Cube is also offering screen protector and car charger bundle for a special price to all their iPhone 5 customers. The package was further sweetened with a complimentary 15-percent discount voucher that can be used at Cube and iStudy branches. Not to forget, Belkin ASEAN was also around to give away handy cleaning cloth throughout the event while TecProtec is offering tailor-made insurance services for customers that would like to further protect their brand new iPhone 5 from mishaps and accidents.
Syed Sobrie was not the only Celcom customer that managed to purchase the new iPhone 5 for only RM 5 that night. The first 100 pre-order customers were also given the same opportunity – all they got to do is just spin the wheel and hope for the best. One such customer was Ronnie who was obviously delighted with his luck and decided to get a second unit using the RM 5 offer.
Throughout the night, Blue Cube Sunway Pyramid provided plenty of refreshments to all customers at the premise in the form of mini-donuts, mineral water and as you can see above, cotton candy. Occasionally, customers were also entertained by the guitar guy which his name unfortunately has slipped off our mind as well as by the bubbly emcee, Daphne Iking.
By 1am, the queue at Blue Cube Sunway Pyramid was relatively empty but things were still quite busy inside the premise as customers are finalizing their purchases. With that, it marks the end of our iPhone 5 midnight launch experience at Blue Cube Sunway Pyramid.
So, how was your iPhone 5 midnight launch experience?
