In what has come to be a familiar pattern, Apple has announced that its first weekend of iPhone 6s model sales are off to the strongest start in iPhone history. Specifically, the company stated that pre-order sales for the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus are on pace to beat last year’s sales of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus during the same opening weekend.
A spokesperson for Apple released a statement that, “We are on pace to beat last year’s 10 million unit first-weekend record when the new iPhones go on sale September 25. As many customers noticed, the online demand for iPhone 6s Plus has been exceptionally strong and exceeded our own forecasts for the preorder period. We are working to catch up as quickly as we can.”
Presently, shipping times for the iPhone 6 Plus model are scheduled to take three to four weeks.
The new iPhone 6s models are the same in appearance as the previously released iPhone 6 models, but they include some new bells and whistles. For example, they include new software features like 3D Touch and are available in a new color: Rose Gold. The 6s Plus, in particular, sold out extremely fast online.
With respect to last year’s sales, Apple announced at the time that the iPhone 6 models received a record-breaking 4 million pre-orders on Day 1 and later confirmed that the opening weekend resulted in over 10 million sales. Soon after, the company announced that in China alone, the iPhone 6 models had pre-orders of greater than 20 million sales.
However, this year’s pre-order sales include the Chinese market, thus not making it an apples-to-apples comparison. In fact, some analysts believe that the announcement of sales numbers may not be as monumental as it seems.
Walter Piecyk, an analyst with BTIG stated that, “While this is encouraging, first weekend sales includes China this year, more than doubling the addressable market for launch day compared when China was not launched until mid-October. It’s therefore not surprising that sales would be up and should not be taken as strong evidence in support of our view that it can grow iPhone sales in this December quarter.”
Whatever the case, investors seem to be satisfied with the news as Apple stock was up as much as 2% in early trading this morning following the announcement.
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