AT&T confirms iPhone 5 preorders set sales record

AT&T on Monday announced that the iPhone 5 set a new sales record at the carrier over the weekend, making it the fastest selling iPhone it has seen yet.

Actual sales figures were not announced, but AT&T did say that customers ordered more iPhones from AT&T than any previous model on both its first day of preorders, and over the full weekend.

The carrier also touted its strengths over competitors, noting that AT&T's network allows customers to talk and surf the Web at the same time.

Apple announced on Friday that officials at the company had been "completely blown away" by demand for the iPhone 5 on its first day of preorder availability. The company sold out of its batch of launch-day orders in just over an hour early Friday morning.

New iPhone 5 preorders are now advertised to ship within two to three weeks for all models.

Last year, the iPhone 4S set a new sales record for Apple, with one million preorders placed for the device on the first day. Total sales exceeded 4 million in the handset's launch weekend. It remained the top-selling smartphone in the U.S. until this August.

The iPhone 5 is expected to handily beat last year's sales records, as it is launching in more countries on its first day of availability, and at a faster rate around the world. At least one analyst believes sales could go as high as 10 million in the September quarter, which concludes at the end of this month.

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12 Comments

MacPro

said about 11 years ago

Let's hear all the reasons Apple haters said this would fail ...? Here is hoping we see over $700 this week and well beyond by Christmas ... $800 maybe?

chaicka

said about 11 years ago

In Singapore: Apple Online Store started accepting pre-orders at approximately 18:00hrs local time, which is 3 hours later than the originally expected time of 15:00hrs (concurrent with US and AU). At approximately 18:30hrs local time, Apple Online Store (Singapore) has sold out of its batch of launch-day orders for the iPhone 5 Black and Slate flavour. By approximately 19:00hrs, the iPhone 5 White and Silver has also sold out, thus ending the pre-orders. Just 1 hour and it is speculated that the timing of accepting pre-orders has been purposed - 18:00hrs is when most workers are knocking off and leaving or left the office commuting home or elsewhere. Otherwise, the Apple Online Store may be bring to a slowness, just like it did has some slowness at around 15:00hrs, the originally expected time of accepting pre-orders.

chaicka

said about 11 years ago

In Singapore: Telcos Sell-Out has not been as great.

SingTel, one of the leading telco in Singapore, is ending its "registration of interest" for the iPhone 5 only today, 17th Sept @ 20:00hrs local time, the 4th day after opening for registration. This is longer than previous iPhone 4 and 4S launches. It may not be an indication on the market losing interest in iPhone 5 but more of an indication on the market detest at the telcos recent revised mobile plans (effective since July 2012) which greatly reduced the bundled data traffic volume from 12GB to 2GB. That's a massive reduction.

anantksundaram

said about 11 years ago

Yawn. On to the iPad Mini.....

blackbook

said about 11 years ago

This is amazing. I don't think anyone expected the disappointing iPhone 5 to sell so well, but no one expected the 4S to sell as wellas it did last year.