$50 iPhone 5S swarmed by thousands in Malaysia

MANILA, Philippines – With lines starting at the front of the store circling all the way to the parking lot, Malaysian Apple reseller, Switch, was forced to cancel its sale last weekend due to an overwhelming influx of buyers, as reported by The Verge. 

Over 11,000 people were said to have queued up at least 19 hours before the store opened – all hoping to be the lucky few to snag the iPhone 5s at door-busting sale prices. These included 10 units of the US $50 iPhone 5S, a 16GB iPad Air 2 with Wi-Fi for US $77, a 2011 64GB MacBook Air for US $128, and a 24-inch iMac for US $255. (READ: Cheaper MacBook Air expected for Q2 of this year – report)

Switch allegedly only had under 200 devices available for the weekend-long sale, largely consisting of demo products. Despite them posting the price and number of units available online ahead of the event, thousands still swarmed the event.

Store personnel initially tried handing queue tickets to those in front of the line but when they opened their doors the crowd became uncontrollable, forcing them to cancel the event entirely. Switch later announced in a Facebook post that it’s putting the clearance sale “on hold until further notice.”

Switch later apologized in a separate post saying “We are truly sorry for the Demo Clearance Event yesterday. We did not expect the magnitude. We were overwhelmed by the 11,000 [that] turned up,”.

In place of the clearance sale iPhones that have sold out, the Malaysian reseller has extended its discounts on the newer Macbooks and iPhone Xs. – Rappler.com