Record pre-orders for iPhone 6

13/09/2014

Apple reported record pre-orders on Friday for the new iPhone 6.

The company did not elaborate on how many units had been sold, however.

As of midday, the larger iPhone 6 Plus had wait times of three to four weeks in all configurations for all carriers. The smaller iPhone 6 was still broadly available for delivery next Friday, though some carriers were starting to run short of lower-priced units.

Based on the number of carriers where day-of-launch delivery was still available, the most popular models appeared to be the 16 GB phones in gold and silver and the 128 GB model in gray. The least popular were apparently the 128 GB in gold and the 16 GB in gray.

Apple and most carriers put the phone on sale online during the early hours of Friday morning, though their websites were plagued with problems for hours as people rushed to reserve a phone.

Demand for the new iPhones is higher than that seen in either of the past two years, an AT&T spokesperson told Re/code Friday. Debut iPhone sales figures have increased steadily over the years.

Iphone 5s and 5c sales were 9 million through their first weekend of availability, topping the debut of the iPhone 5—which sold 5 million in the first three days after its launch—and more than double the 4 million iPhone 4s sold during the first weekend of its availability.

A key demographic in the tech for behemoth appears to be somewhat unimpressed with the new release.

According to a new survey on Thursday from the textbook rental book site Chegg, only 36 percent of U.S. high school and college students said they would “definitely” or “probably” purchase the phones, while 1 in 10 said they planned to buy the Apple Watch.

The 36 percent figure was unchanged from a previous survey conducted between Aug. 30 and Sept. 2 based on the anticipated iPhone 6 news.