Apple iPhone sales hit record 10M sold in first weekend

The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus sales beat the 9M iPhone 5s models sold last year

It gets reiterated every single time Apple puts out a new version of the iPhone: people just love them. Sure, tech-heads love to rag on them, and talk about how all of their new features are just copies of what Android did years ago, but the average person doesn't care about that.

So, yet again, Apple has set a new record with The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus having now become the fastest selling versions of the device yet, with 10 million combined units sold in the first weekend, the company announced on Monday.

It's no surprise that the launch was huge, given that Apple had already touted a record four million pre-orders for the phones last week. Still, some analysts had low-balled the numbers, making the actually numbers for the new iPhones look even more impressive.

So how does this actually compare to previous launches? Well, it should be noted that, yes, the sales set a new record, but just barely. 

The launch of the new iPhone 5s and 5c last year saw nine million units sold, meaning that the iPhone 6 models broke the record, but not by much. Compare that to the growth that Apple saw between the launch of the iPhone 5, which sold five million units in its first weekend in 2012, and then the newer iPhone models, and things maybe don't look so rosy. It has gone from nearly doubling sales between releases, to just barely squeaking by.

Still, Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, sounded the happiest possible note about the sales record. 

“Sales for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus exceeded our expectations for the launch weekend, and we couldn’t be happier,” Cook said in a statement. “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.”

The two new iPhone models became available in the US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore and the UK on September 19th, and will be available in more than 20 additional countries on September 26 including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey and United Arab Emirates.

In all, they will be available in 115 countries by the end of this year.

Part of the reason for the lower estimates on the new phones, according Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi, is because China was not a part of the initial rollout.

"We note that China has typically accounted for ~20% of total global iPhone sales – accordingly, an initial launch in China would have added an additional ~25% demand pull on iPhones, which may have significantly pushed out availability issues in other countries," he wrote. "By contrast, we estimate that the second wave of 20 countries being added this week, account for an estimated 12% of iPhone sales."

The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus

The most notable thing about the new iPhones is  that they are both thinner and bigger.

The iPhone 6 has a 4.7 inch screen, while the 6 Plus has a screen that is 5.5 inches. They also have better displays, with the phones coming with 1 million, and 2 million, pixels, respectively. The iPhone 6 Plus will jave185% more pixels than the iPhone 5S does.

Apple is calling its new generation of retina displays "Retina HD." The phones also come with a new A8 processor and a graphics chip that is 50% faster than the one it is currently using. 

The iPhone 6 costs consumers between $199 for the 16GB version, $299 for the 64GB and $399 for the 128GB. The iPhone 6 Plus, meanwhile, will cost at $299, $399 and $499 for the same amount of space.

(Image source: apple.com)