The iPhone 5 will be launched in South Africa on 14 December. Apple announced on Monday that the highly coveted smartphone will be launched in more than 50 additional countries over the next 10 days.

“Apple today announced that the iPhone 5 will be available in South Korea on Friday, 7 December, with more than 50 additional countries being added in December, including Brazil, Russia and Taiwan,” the US technology company said in a statement.

The iPhone 5 is already available in 47 countries. It was launched on 21 September in the US, Canada, the UK, Germany, France, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore.

The device, which has storage capacities of 16GB, 32GB and 64GB, will be available in black and white versions. Previous versions of the iPhone have been available from Vodacom and MTN, with Cell C recently joining its bigger rivals in offering the Apple smartphone.

Several other African countries are getting the iPhone 5 a week later, on 21 December. They are Botswana, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Egypt, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius, Morocco, Niger, Senegal, Tunisia and Uganda.

Meanwhile, Vodacom has confirmed that it will launch the device in South Africa on 14 December but says pricing information will only be available closer to the launch date. TechCentral is still waiting for comment from MTN, Cell C and 8ta. — (c) 2012 NewsCentral Media