Today, Apple has announced that the weekend sales of the iPhone has topped 9 million, easily breaking last year’s record of 5 million. Many will point to the simultaneous launch of the new devices in countries such as China as a huge factor. Nevertheless these figures are quite impressive for a device (iPhone 5s) that is meant to be in limited supply.
“This is our best iPhone launch yet―more than nine million new iPhones sold―a new record for first weekend sales,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “The demand for the new iPhones has been incredible, and while we’ve sold out of our initial supply of iPhone 5s, stores continue to receive new iPhone shipments regularly. We appreciate everyone’s patience and are working hard to build enough new iPhones for everyone.”
Apple has not given the specific numbers of who each iPhone model sold. However, I new report from Apple 2.0 blogger Philip Elmer-DeWitt suggests that the higher-priced iPhone 5S outsold 5C in U.S. by 3.4 to 1.
According to a report issued by Localytics, a Boston-based mobile analytics firm, here is how the two models performed:
- Apple sold 3.4 times as many units of the higher-priced iPhone 5S as the 5C during the first weekend of U.S. sales
- Globally the 5S outpaced the 5C by a factor of 3.7 to 1. In Japan the ratio was even steeper: 5:1.
- Of the four largest U.S. carriers, AT&T (T) has seen the highest adoption rates for both models, representing 0.67% of all activated iPhones, versus 0.51% for Verizon (VZ), 0.12% for Sprint (S) and 0.07% for T-Mobile .
Additionally, Apple announced that, more than 200 million iOS devices are now running the completely redesigned iOS 7, making it the fastest software upgrade in history.
The company had more good news for Wall Street.
According to a report by Street Insider, Apple said it expects total company revenue for the fourth fiscal quarter to be near the high end of the previously provided range of $34 billion to $37 billion, and expects gross margin to be near the high end of the previously provided range of 36% to 37%.
On the back of these great news, the company’s stock price rose more than 6.15 percent in pre-market trading. It’s now up 3.65 percent at the time of writing.
