Vietnam websites overloaded with iPhone 14 orders

Bao Tran in Ho Chi Minh City stayed up until 0:00 a.m. Friday to pre-order a purple iPhone 14 but the website she was on was frozen.

She switched to another seller and its platform ceased to operate at the payment step. Tran then tried a third store but all the purple models were out and she had to select the gold option.

Several platforms confirmed that they have recorded a surge in pre-orders.

As of 10 a.m. Friday, FPT Shop recorded over 93,000 pre-orders and 15,500 of them had put down a deposit.

This is a record high number of pre-orders for the electronic retailers. It tripled the number of pre-orders for iPhone 13. FPT Shop expects iPhone 14 sales to rise 200% from the previous model.

Another distributor of Apple products, ShopDunk, recorded 1,500 pre-orders in the first 30 minutes, a six-time surge compared to iPhone 13.

This means there was a pre-order for almost every second in the first half-hour of launching, said Pham Tuan Anh, a media representative for the company.

“There will likely be a shortage for iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max versions in the first week of delivery in Vietnam.”

Many other stores reported that the all iPhone 14 Pro Max for the first delivery have been pre-ordered.

iPhone 14 and 14 Plus, however, are still available. CellphoneS, for example, recorded these models in only 5% of its total pre-orders.

iPhone 14 is sold from VND24.9 million ($1,040) to VND49.9 million in Vietnam.

The first official iPhone 14s are set to be delivered to Vietnamese users on October 14, and the second delivery October 24.