Apple’s iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus smartphones are off to a record-breaking start at retail, with more than 4m units having been pre-ordered in the first 24 hours after the handsets went on sale.
The two phones, with larger screens than previous models, will go on sale on Friday (19 September) in 10 countries, and then 20 more the following week.
The pre-order figure does not include China, where the new iPhones have not yet been approved for sale by the government, a move that has concerned the three big carriers there. China is Apple’s largest market, ahead of the US, and demand for the larger iPhone 6 Plus is expected to be high.
In the US and Europe, Apple is warning some customers that their pre-ordered handsets will not be delivered until October, even though the company is holding back some units for the traditional first-day queues at its own retail stores.
“Pre-orders for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus set a new record for Apple, and we can’t wait to get our best iPhones yet into the hands of customers starting this Friday,” said chief executive Tim Cook in a statement.
The 4m pre-orders of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus compare to 2m first-day pre-orders of the iPhone 5 in September 2012, which it said then was double the previous record of 1m units set by the iPhone 4s in 2011. Some analysts reckon that in the Christmas quarter, from October to the end of December, Apple could sell 60m iPhones, compared with 51m the year before. The figures announced on Monday will add towards the current quarter, which runs to the end of September.
Apple did not announce 24-hour pre-order figures for 2013’s iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c handsets, although the pair had sold 9m units three days after they went on sale that September. In 2012, the iPhone 5 reached 5m sales three days after its retail launch.
The key features of the latest iPhone models are their larger screens: 4.7in for the iPhone 6 and 5.5in for the iPhone 6 Plus. Larger-screened smartphones from rival manufacturers have been selling increasingly strongly in recent years.
The new iPhones will face competition from smartphones and phablets including Samsung’s Galaxy S5, Galaxy Alpha and Galaxy Note 4. Samsung has already taken a jab at Apple for following its lead, in a commercial for the Galaxy Note 4, which goes on sale in October.
The new devices also include faster processors, better battery life, improved cameras, and an NFC-based mobile payment system called Apple Pay, although the latter will only work in the US at launch.
Both phones will run iOS 8, the latest version of Apple’s mobile software, which will be made available to download for existing iPhone models on Wednesday (17 September).
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