It’s always a newsworthy event when Apple launches a new product. Apple doesn’t even have to advertise as much as other companies when they are launching a new product. It simply has to be announced and it stirs up a social media frenzy and a long line of customers outside almost every Apple store. It’s always an exciting event to get to hold and play with the latest new Apple gadget.
The weekend launch of the new Apple iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus was not different in its excitement and buying frenzy as well. Over the weekend, Apple iPhone sales were over 10 million. Ten million is what people like Ben Reitzes of Barclays and Walt Piecyk at BTIG predicted would happen for Apple during its launch. So it came as no surprise. This amount was a record amount for Apple and came as a nice surprise to CEO Tim Cook. Although, Mr. Cook is always looking to improve Apple’s productivity and sales of its products. In a statement over the weekend he said, “Sales for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus exceeded our expectations for the launch weekend… While our team managed the manufacturing ramp better than ever before, we could have sold many more iPhones with greater supply and we are working hard to fill orders as quickly as possible.”
When accurately researching the sales numbers for last year’s opening weekend launch of its iPhone 5, 5S, and 5C, Apple reported that phone sales were at 9 million. However, according to Gene Munster at Piper Jaffray, many of Apple’s iPhone 5Cs just sat in the pipeline, without actually being moved or sold. So, in actuality, the number of iPhone 5s sold last year was 5.4 million. When compared to the number of iPhone 6s sold this year, this was a quite a large gain. And this large number of 10 million iPhone 6s sold over the weekend is even more significant because the phones were not sold in China, a relatively huge market.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has arrived at the company’s Palo Alto store to open the doors for customers purchasing iPhone’s. pic.twitter.com/ks1hWwhrG0
— CNBC Newsroom (@CNBCnow) September 19, 2014
The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus will be a very important seller for Apple, probably its most popular seller. This is in large because in the past Apple has always sold phones that had the standard 4-inch screen. Now, their new phones are bigger screens – 4.7-inch for the iPhone 6 and 5.5-inch for the iPhone 6 Plus. This is in direct competition with other phones like the Android phones.
Still, investors will have to wait and see how well the iPhone 6 phones do with sales in the future since opening sales are always high because of demand. This high, however, will only continue as long as Apple keeps its supply of phones up.
