Apple Boasts Of 9m iPhone 5S And 5C First Weekend Sales

Apple sold nine million iPhone 5S and 5C smartphones in the first three days they were on sale, but the tech titan has not revealed sales figures for each individual model.

The handsets debuted in Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore, the UK and the US last Friday, and marked the first time Apple has ever released two versions of the iPhone at the same time.

“This is our best iPhone launch yet―more than nine million new iPhones sold―a new record for first weekend sales,” said Tim Cook, Apple CEO.

Apple iPhone 5S

The Cupertino-based company boasted that demand had exceeded supply, but promised many online orders would be fulfilled soon and more iPhones were on the way.

“The demand for the new iPhones has been incredible, and while we’ve sold out of our initial supply of iPhone 5s, stores continue to receive new iPhone shipments regularly,” said Cook. “We appreciate everyone’s patience and are working hard to build enough new iPhones for everyone.”

Reports last week suggested UK and US operators were frustrated at short supplies of the iPhone 5S and were concerned customers would blame the delays on them, not Apple.

Some suggested that production of the new 64-bit A7 processor and Touch ID fingerprint sensor had caused delays, while one unnamed operator believed Apple was deliberately trying to push the cheaper iPhone 5C, of which supplies were much more plentiful.

Both the iPhone 5S and 5C debuted with iOS 7, the latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system, which has also been made available to the iPhone 4 or later and the iPad 2 or later as a free software update.

Apple said iOS 7 has been downloaded onto 200 million devices since it was made available last Wednesday, making it the fastest software upgrade ever.

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