iPhone 4S breaks Aussie pre-order records
The iPhone 4S has broken sales records in Australia already, with less than 24 hours until its official launch.
(Credit: Apple)
Despite early criticisms of the iPhone 4S for not being the iPhone 5 as everyone had expected, globally, Apple has reported that pre-orders for the new iPhone have topped one million.
Telstra, which opened up pre-orders for Apple's latest iPhone last night, has already sold out of the 64GB model in both black and white. The website went down briefly last night under the stress of demand from customers.
The company's head of digital Gerd Schenkel said that Telstra has broken online sales records, and has already processed thousands of orders.
"Victorians were keenest to get in early to order iPhone 4S online — accounting for a third of online pre-orders, followed closely by New South Wales. Trailing behind were sales from customers in Queensland, WA, SA, TAS and NT," he said in a statement.
Customers who have pre-ordered online can expect to start receiving their iPhones from tomorrow, with Telstra advising that it may take up to five business days for delivery.
Vodafone reported similar demand for the device.
"Absolutely unprecedented demand for the iPhone 4S — pre-orders are going strong, and we've geared up for a big day tomorrow, with deliveries to be couriered out to our customers and remaining stocks distributed across selected stores nationally," the company said in a statement.
Optus told ZDNet Australia that the most popular handset had been the black 16GB iPhone 4S.
"We have had an overwhelming response from customers since the Optus iPhone 4S pre-order site went live on Saturday 8 October. We cannot divulge volumes at this stage but are really happy with number of pre-orders to date," Optus said. "Due to higher stock levels than previous years we are confident we can meet customer demand when the devices launches in Optus stores across Australia from tomorrow at 8am."
Telstra, Optus and Vodafone have all committed to opening selected stores across Australia at 8am tomorrow morning for customers wanting to get their hands on the new iPhone 4S. It is not clear at this stage whether stock will be in short supply; however, Telstra has warned that although stocks are expected to meet initial demand, the company was anticipating "temporary stock shortages in some locations".
Updated at 7:08am 14 October 2011: added Optus comment