In just three days, sales of the iPhone 6 and larger iPhone 6 Plus have set a new record.
10 million handsets sold in one weekend
©Apple -AFP/ Relaxnews
Apple on Monday announced that iPhone sales surpassed 10 million following the first weekend of sales in 10 initial countries.
To put the figures into some sort of context, Samsung announced in May that it had shipped 10 million Galaxy S 5 handsets globally, a month after its global release.
However, shipping isn’t the same as selling, and Apple is the only big smartphone maker that is happy to publicly divulge sales figures.
Selling 10 million handsets in three days, despite the phone only being on sale in 10 countries is a remarkable feat, and one that Apple is clearly very proud of: “Sales for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus exceeded our expectations for the launch weekend, and we couldn’t be happier,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We would like to thank all of our customers for making this our best launch ever, shattering all previous sell-through records by a large margin. While our team managed the manufacturing ramp better than ever before, we could have sold many more iPhones with greater supply and we are working hard to fill orders as quickly as possible.”
Indeed as some publications reported, supplies of the larger iPhone 6 Plus were constrained in the US, causing people who had queued for hours to walk away empty-handed.
The new iPhone 6 and its phablet counterpart, the iPhone 6 Plus both boast the biggest displays ever to feature on an Apple smartphone — 4.7-inches and 5.5-inches, respectively. They are also the first iPhones to have health apps baked into the operating system and to support mobile payments.
As well as making existing Apple fans very happy, the new, bigger phones appear to be attracting the attention of Android smartphone owners too.
According to US smartphone trade-in website, Gazelle, Samsung handset trade-ins jumped threefold following the announcement of the latest iPhones. It also claimed in an email to BGR that one in three people who traded in an Android handset said that they were planning to upgrade to an iPhone 6.
The iPhone 6 will be rolling out to consumers in Switzerland, Italy, New Zealand, Sweden, Netherlands, Spain, Denmark, Ireland, Norway, Luxembourg, Russia, Austria, Turkey, Finland, Taiwan, Belgium and Portugal on September 26 and, according to the company, by the end of 2014 will be on sale in 115 countries. -AFP/ Relaxnews