18 October, 2011
By Adnan
When Apple said that this was their best iPhone launch ever, they really meant it. This new iPhone has broken all previous sales records set by Apple’s own iPhone 4. The company announced that they have sold over four million iPhone 4S devices in seven countries it was initially launched in the first weekend only.
Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing Philip Schiller said:
iPhone 4S is off to a great start with more than four million sold in its first weekend—the most ever for a phone and more than double the iPhone 4 launch during its first three days. iPhone 4S is a hit with customers around the world, and together with iOS 5 and iCloud, is the best iPhone ever.
Last year when iPhone 4 was released it was expected to be the most successful iPhone launch given the fact that it was a complete upgrade over the previous generation iPhone 3GS. The iPhone 4S is a minor refresh of iPhone 4 with the only changes that were made are those on the inside. However it turns out that iPhone 4S has broken all previous iPhone 4 sales records by getting over 1 million pre-orders of launch day against 600,000 of iPhone 4 and selling over four million iPhones on the first weekend against the iPhone 4′s 1.7 million units record.
Apart from that, Apple also announced that over 25 million people have downloaded iOS 5 firmware for devices other than iPhone 4S, which include iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad 1, iPad 2, iPod touch 3G and iPod touch 4G. In addition to that, over 20 million iCloud accounts have been created worldwide. iOS 5 is the most extensive mobile platform update Apple has ever released with over 200 new features which include but are not limited to AirPlay mirroring on iPad 2 and iPhone 4S, Notification Center, iMessages, Twitter integration, Reminders app, Newsstand etc.
To be fair, the iPhone 4S has been launched with three carriers in the US against the one iPhone 4 was initially launched on. The iPhone 4 was also initially released in four countries only whereas the iPhone 4S was initially released to seven countries. We reckon that had such a market been open for iPhone 4, the records set by it might have been higher right now.
