Singapore among 8 countries outside US to offer new iPhone 5 on 21 September

Singaporeans will be among the first to get their hands on the new iPhone 5 - when it goes sale next Friday on 21 September.

Singapore is one of the countries where the phone will be made available on 21 September - in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, the UK and US. 

A week later, it will go on sale in 22 more countries, including Italy, Poland and Spain.

All three telcos in Singapore - M1, SingTel and StarHub say they will offer the phone from next Friday.

Touted as the thinnest and lightest iPhone ever, iPhone 5 boasts of a bigger screen, 4 inches measured diagonally. 

Apple says this creates room for another row of icons on the screen and improves the appearance of anything shot in widescreen. 

Previous iPhone models carried 3.5-inch screens. 

At its launch, Apple Senior Vice President, Phil Schiller said, "The new iPhone5 is just 7.6 mm thin. That's 18% thinner than the iPhone 4S and best of all it's the world's thinnest smartphone." 

In another big change, the iPhone 5 will come with the capability to connect to the fastest new wireless data networks in the US and overseas.