iPhone 4 with Maxis: Pre-orders when?

We’ve pretty much correctly predicted when the iPhone 4 will be coming to Malaysia. Now we’ll look into our crystal ball to see roughly when Maxis will open pre-orders for the device.

In our earlier post we mentioned that the most likely date for a Malaysian iPhone 4 launch is August. We highlighted a few reasons why we think August will be the month, one of the main point is Maxis would want to do get the launch over and done with before Ramadhan kicks in – which will be roughly around the second week of August.

Ok, assuming the launch will be before Ramadhan (roughly around the first week of August), we can work backwards and roughly have a feel of when the pre-orders for the iPhone 4 will open. And judging by Maxis’ previous trends with pre-orders, you’re looking at probably a two-week buffer before the launch date.

This will give the PR and Marketing people in Maxis enough time to create buzz and run some PR stunts and God forbid, run another top 10 review program. Pre-order for the iPhone 4 won’t start more than two weeks before its launch as from our own experience starting pre-orders more than two weeks ahead of the actual launch date of any device will be challenging. PR and Marketing will have a difficult time maintaining the excitement.

Even in the US, pre-orders for the iphone 4 started on 15 June, exactly 10 days before the June 24 in-stores date. So we’re expecting something similar with Maxis.

In fact, if you look at past iPhone launches from Maxis, you can see a trend:
iPhone 3G: announced March 11, 2009. In-stores March 20, 2009 – 9 days
iPhone 3GS: pre-orders July 10, 2010 2009. In-stores July 18, 2010 2009 – 8 days

Like we said, pre-orders will start about two week before the launch and if the launch is early August, you can expect Maxis to say something around 19 July onwards.

We’ll have to warn you though, this is just a prediction and we could really get it all wrong. So please don’t take it as confirmed. Well, at least not yet.

And if you’re wondering, as of now, still no word on DiGi about the iPhone 4.