Apple announced this morning they sold more than 10 million iPhones over the weekend, eclipsing the previous record of nine million with the launch of last year’s iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c. The figure is no doubt impressive but there’s more here than first meets the eye.
In a press release on the matter, Apple CEO Tim Cook said sales for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus exceeded their expectations for launch weekend and they couldn’t be happier. He added that they could have sold more iPhones had inventory held up and they are working hard to fill orders as quickly as possible.
The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus launched on September 19 in the US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore and the UK. Notably absent from this list is China, considered by some as Apple’s largest market. The iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c simultaneously launched in China but not this time around.
As The Wall Street Journal notes, Chinese state media attributes the delayed launch to regulatory issues. Had China been included in the launch of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, opening weekend sales would have no doubt been much higher. Instead, it seems that some in the country are looking to the black market to get their hands on Apple’s latest.
It’s worth pointing out that Apple didn’t detail individual phone sales so we have no real way of knowing which of the two new models customers prefer. And even if we did have that figure, the fact that Apple ran out of inventory would skew the results.
