iPhone 5 selling at a record pace


Early predictions for the iPhone 5 were nothing short of miraculous, with some analysts going on record with a sales target of 10 million units sold in the first 30 days. Others went so far as to suggest the mighty iPhone would contribute a whopping 0.5% to the entire U.S. GDP. Keep in mind, we’re talking about a phone here, an expensive one at that, and thus not a necessity for anyone. I agreed that there was pent-up demand for Apple’s latest device, but these numbers seemed liked hype and not reality.

But I’m beginning to think the bulls were right.

TechCrunch is reporting that today, as pre-orders for the iPhone began at midnight, the demand for the iPhone 5 obliterated the previous sales records set by the iPhone 4 and 4S. Unlike the older models which took 20 and 22 hours respectively to sell-out of Apple’s first week stock, the iPhone 5 hit this milestone after 60 minutes.

Now, we need to be somewhat circumspect with our amazement, after all, only Apple knows the true number of units this represents. It’s quite conceivable that they simply had fewer units available for the September 21st launch date than with their previous models. And yet, there’s no question, despite lacking a single big “wow” factor feature, the iPhone 5 is likely going to be the most popular iPhone yet.

Update, September 17: Looks like the early reports of sell-outs weren’t just the result of low-inventory. Apple says that the iPhone 5 shattered the previous first day-sales record for an iPhone – the company sold more than 2 million units in the first 24 hours. That’s nearly double the amount of iPhone 4S units sold in the same period post-launch.

If you’re a Canadian looking to hop on the iPhone bandwagon, we’ve got good news: The $199 starting price quoted by Apple at their launch event on Wednesday is the U.S. contract price. Here in Canada, with our longer 3-year terms, the starting price is a little lower: $179 for a three-year term with all of the major carriers.

Pre-orders have begun with Bell,  Rogers and TELUS, while Fido is offering a reservation system for customers.

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13 comments

  3. Alex

    Guys for those of you wanting to buy this phone 5 and does not want to be suck with a contract and happen to be oversea , the phone is mostly unlock . It’s better to just buy it over there .

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  5. Ted

    Something is wrong when you pay $200.00 for a 3 year contract for a bandwidth gobbling monster that only cost $9.00 per unit to produce. Apple is rotten to the core amassing billions on the backs of poorly paid labourers.

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  6. Dave

    And the herding of the iSheep begins. iSheep is a registered Trademark of ‘everyone in the world Inc.’, so crapple better not steal it.

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  7. Dimitri K.

    iZombies™ lol.

    Lining-up to have their wallets raped year after year for incremental upgrades.

    No NFC was personally a turnoff for me. I loved the technology and not having it means it is not “future-proof” and thus not worth bothering. The screen size is also a bit small and the display resolution is not HD-quality.

    Also I don’t know if any of you know about it but 16GB “iPhone 5” or iPhone 4S+ cost only $167.50 to manufacture each. And they are selling them for $699 each (no contract).

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  8. Jon

    Apples products will always appeal to their fans but lets not forget we are only talking about less than 20% of the market share here. I don’t see this product being good enough to stop the rampage of Android operating system phones from taking a larger share of the market. It’s too early to see if the Windows based phones will manage to cut into either of the others share either. What’s great for consumers is a better choice fo products to choose from.
    Its’s quite likely that Apple realizes the future of their iphone is short term if they do not come out with something significantly different soon. It is also rumoured that Samsung will be returning the patent war battlefield too on this new iphone over the 4G patents that it claims Samsung owns the rights to. If they are successfull then the obscene prices for the phones make sense as it could be to offset the legal costs and the eventual settlements to come from it. At the end of the day ot’s the same old story we the consumers always get shafted.

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  9. CrazyAndy

    I can see the landfill sites filling up with old Iphone chargers as I type this! (Be responsible recycle.) :-)

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