These images were from Malaysia's music maestro's FB page, Az Samad. He attended the Ibanez 2026 new models launch at Bentley Music, KL on 14th January 2026. FYI, Malaysia's official Ibanez distributor is Bentley Music, not Swee Lee.
I'm not reading too much into this event but there are some implications here which, for the most part, is my personal anxiety for all things Ibanez since I'm an Ibanez fan from the start. If you share this perspective, then you can relate to some conceptual concerns.
Ibanez chose Bentley for a product launch ahead of the NAMM 2026 show. Ibanez chose to work with Bentley that observes domestic (Malaysia) operations as opposed to Swee Lee that has storefronts in seven other countries in addition to Singapore. I'm giving this a benefit of the doubt - maybe Ibanez & Swee Lee have other grand plans in the near future but the exclusive treatment of giving your distributor partial ownership when it comes to product launches is hard to beat, even priceless to a certain degree.
In view of commercial interest(s), there might be a shift in operational trends & Swee Lee would do well to know what these are. I'm not a Swee Lee employee, I'm not professionally related to them as well. I'm just an Ibanez fan who sometimes tried too hard to acquire nuggets of info which are readily available elsewhere. I'm in no way implying there should be a preferential / exclusive treatment for certain distributors in view of how they flex their commercial muscle. These days, we don't go where the wind blows but to where the money flows.
Pics: Az Samad FB
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