The iPhone 5 is finally launched today in Indonesia. Now, the phone can be ordered nationwide through its three carrier partners, Telkomsel, XL Axiata, and Indosat. It’s also for sale through other vendors including Lazada, Rakuten, and BliBli.
Telkomsel was the first carrier to open online pre-orders in Indonesia, and although its carrier packages are the most expensive in the country, the company was still able to sell out its 2,000 handsets during pre-orders. Today’s launch in Gandaria City mall was mostly for the 300 invited customers who had bought the phones online:
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XL Axiata was the only carrier that did not start online pre-orders for the iPhone 5, instead the company held its ‘Antri Like a King’ program which promised comforts and conveniences for its queuing customers at two malls – Central Park and Senayan City. Interestingly, XL Axiata offered generous discounts of 50 percent and IDR 1.5 million ($156) to the first 50 and 100 customers respectively at each mall. XL Axiata might be the carrier that managed to gather the largest crowd:
 Queue at Senayan City Mall |
 Crowd that are waiting for the Central Park Mall to open |
Indosat was the only carrier that held its launch away from any malls, focusing on two Seven Eleven stores in Jakarta. Indonesia’s Seven Elevens are popular among teenagers as late-night hang-out places, and the two selected places became more crowded particularly during midnight. Indosat’s iPhone 5 launch offered discounts between IDR 1 million ($104) to IDR 2 million ($208), but still that wasn’t enough to spark the kind of big-bang launch seen by its two rivals.
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On the other hand, Indosat also held a fun offline contest to win an iPhone 5, in conjunction with e-commerce store Lazada Indonesia, at midnight at the fX Mall. After several grueling questions for the eleven [1] on the quiz panel – about Apple mainly, which included naming the third founder besides Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak; it was even asked which is the Japanese meat dish that Steve Jobs enjoyed even though he was a vegetarian – one person was able to consistently dominate and win the contest, he was Handoko Tjung. He was one of the four that was chosen by us on Wednesday (in this post) to go into the quiz.
This morning, the winner tweeted this:
I JUST WON MYSELF A NEW IPHONE 5!!! WOOHOOOOOOOOOO!!! Thanks @lazadaid @indosat and @techinasia for the chance! twitter.com/handokotjung/s…
— Handoko Tjung (@handokotjung) December 13, 2012
Handoko explained that the iPhone 5 he won is his first iPhone ever. Although he used a Blackberry handset, he is a big admirer of Apple and had watched several documentaries about the company and Jobs. That gave him a huge advantage when answering the questions in the contest. Handoko was chosen by us for his comment below. Congratulations man!
Hi I’m @handokotjung , and I want that iPhone 5 as an early christmas present, I’ve never got one from santa in the past 26 year. I think I’ve always been in the naughty list.
WELL GUESS WHAT SANTA? SCREW YOU AND YOUR NAUGHTY or NICE LIST!
I’ll get my own christmas present!Ehm.
That being said, that retina display is pretty slick. Gimme gimme gimme.
[Sources: Kompas Tekno #1, #2 #3, and liputan6, pictures too]
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The planned number of contestants was 10, but in the end there were 11 people competing for the iPhone 5. The losing contestants took home IDR 500,000 ($52) worth of Lazada shopping vouchers. ↩
