Skip to main content

iPhone 5 sales exceed five million after first weekend, more than 100 million devices updated to iOS 6

iPhone 5 sales exceed five million after first weekend, more than 100 million devices updated to iOS 6

/

Unsurprisingly, Apple's iPhone 5 had a massive first weekend — the company is reporting sales in excess of five million devices over the first weekend of retail availability.

Share this story

iphone 5
iphone 5

Unsurprisingly, Apple's iPhone 5 had a massive first weekend — the company is reporting sales in excess of five million devices over the first weekend of retail availability. That comes a week after Apple announced that two million customers pre-ordered the device after it became available online on September 14th. The iPhone 4S sold four million devices over its first weekend of availability last October, so the iPhone 5 continues to be a record-setting device for Apple. However, it's worth noting that the iPhone 5 went on sale in a total of nine countries, two more than the iPhone 4S did last year. With first weekend pre-orders for the iPhone 5 coming in at twice what the iPhone 4S did, there's a chance that sales of Apple's latest iPhone won't quite match the incredible year-over-year growth that the iPhone 4S drove last year. In fact, Horace Dediu at Asymco pulled together a chart that shows, when normalized by available countries, the iPhone 5 sold the same average amount per country as the 4S.

Yet another record-setting launch — but is the iPhone's massive growth beginning to slow?

Additionally, Apple said that over 100 million customers have upgraded to iOS 6 — a number that represents 25 percent of all active iOS devices. Apple was able to hit that milestone less than a week after iOS 6 became available. Sales may not be slowing down any time soon, either — 22 more countries will start selling the iPhone 5 on September 28th, and Apple's online store is currently showing three to four week shipping delays.

In a statement, Apple CEO Tim Cook said, "demand for iPhone 5 has been incredible and we are working hard to get an iPhone 5 into the hands of every customer who wants one as quickly as possible." He went on to say, "while we have sold out of our initial supply, stores continue to receive iPhone 5 shipments regularly and customers can continue to order online and receive an estimated delivery date." If you want to get your hands on Apple's latest and greatest, it sounds like your best bet is to keep checking your local stores.