September 22, 2014: Apple notches a brand new gross sales report with the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus launch, promoting an astonishing 10 million models within the first weekend the handsets go on sale.
The eagerly anticipated smartphones convey a redesigned type issue that can persist for years. The obvious change? Bigger 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch shows constructed to lure phablet followers. The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus additionally boast an A8 chip, improved iSight and FaceTime cameras, and — considerably — Apple Pay for safe cellular funds.
“Gross sales for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus exceeded our expectations for the launch weekend, and we couldn’t be happier,” Apple CEO Tim Prepare dinner says in a press launch. “We wish to thank all of our clients for making this our greatest launch ever, shattering all earlier sell-through information by a big margin.”
iPhone 6 launch units report regardless of challenges
Though Apple toppled the iPhone 6 gross sales report only a 12 months later with the iPhone 6s, that system benefited from occurring sale in China on launch day. Regulatory delays made that unimaginable for the iPhone 6 launch. Provide constraints additionally put a crimp on iPhone 6 gross sales.
“Whereas our workforce managed the manufacturing ramp higher than ever earlier than, we might have offered many extra iPhones with better provide,” Prepare dinner mentioned, “and we’re working exhausting to fill orders as shortly as potential.”
Nonetheless, the iPhone 6’s opening weekend gross sales of 10 million models represented substantial and sustained development. The iPhone 5s and 5c racked up 9 million gross sales a 12 months earlier. And the iPhone 5 hit 5 million earlier than that. By comparability, the authentic iPhone recorded first-weekend gross sales of “simply” 700,000 models in 2007.
The tip of an period for Apple
In some methods, the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus represented the height of Apple’s launch-weekend frenzy. Right this moment, Apple not makes an enormous deal about topping its opening-weekend numbers every 12 months. Intensive on-line preorders now largely take the place of lengthy traces snaking exterior Apple Shops all over the world. And, with smartphone gross sales leveling off, Cupertino doesn’t even reveal what number of models it sells anymore.
Nonetheless, after a typical weekend of iPhone launch enjoyable, we form of miss the milestone gross sales bulletins if we’re completely sincere. Even when it does make sense for Apple, which merely can not preserve setting new, nigh-insurmountable gross sales information every year, to expose that information.