Apple: 4m iPhone 4S handsets sold, thank you very much
Kerching
Apple sold 4m iPhone 4S handsets this past Friday and over the weekend, it claimed today.
That meets the expectations of the more bullish market watchers forecasting sales on Friday.
That's in addition to the 25m folk who downloaded iOS 5 for existing iDevices, Apple said. Well, those who were eventually able to upgrade to the new OS.
Not all of that lot - or the 4m iPhone 4S buyers - signed up for Apple's free iCloud service, but 20m of them did, it claimed.
Apple's previous offering, the iPhone 4, notched up less than half that 4m total during its first three days on sale in 2010.
Apple didn't say whether these were sales to shops, or to real punters. We suspect the latter, but Apple's generally tight inventory management means it's unlikely too many were left sitting on shop shelves.
Industry commentators irked by Apple's apparent failure to release the iPhone 5 - they widely criticised the 4S as a small upgrade of the existing iPhone 4 - clearly didn't have much sway with all those buyers.
Shipping 18 months or so after the previous iPhone went on sale app puts the iPhone 4S on sale right when a fair few owners of existing handsets will be coming out of contract. Apple certainly appears to be attempting to synchronise its release schedule with the rhythm of the mobile industry rather than simply pumping out new handsets ever 12 months.
The 4S went on sale this past Friday in the US, the UK, Australia, Canada, France, Germany and Japan. It'll go on sale in 22 more countries at the end of the month. ®
COMMENTS
What you're suggesting there Barry is called "Misleading the Market" and stock exchanges aren't too fond of that occuring; I think financial regluators also find it quite distasteful.
@Barry
Seriously barry , taking a straw poll out of you and your two mates , is nothing special!
I don't get it.
O2 - 24 month contract, about £27 a month and you get an S2 free.
Vodaphone, same thing, but you have to fork out nearly £240 extra for the 4s.
Am I the only one thinking that 4 million people have more money than sense in these supposedly austere times?
@Michelle...
Its becuase 4m peeps dont want cheap korean knockoff ;)
Considering Steve Ballmer
ability to predict the future ("The iPhone has no hope of gaining a true foothold in the cellphone marketplace") I wish he would predict I was going to win it big in the lottery, live to 100 and start growing back some of the hair I lost.
But one an up note for Microsoft and their plan to take back the cell phone market - they announced they sold a phone this week.
I know it is not nice to kick someone when they are down - but some people just ask for it.
