Apple Sells Over 4 Million iPhone 4S Units On Opening Weekend

Cooling their jets? No way. While pundits were quick to declare Apple's iPhone 4S as nothing more than a rehashed iPhone 4 with a few new tricks, the general populace hardly sees it that way. While the company has sold 1+ million phones on opening weekends before, they've never moved this many. After a weekend's worth of sales, Apple announced that 4 million of their new 4S phones were sold. Yes. 4 Million. With an "M."

That's more than a little crazy when you consider the realities surrounding this launch. It took well over a year to get the 4S onto shelves, and just about everyone following Apple was expecting an iPhone 5 -- not just some overhauled iPhone 4. Early reviews weren't exactly gushing, either. But at this point, we have to wonder just how much any of that matters. It's a new device from Apple, and it's pretty clear at this point that that simple fact is enough to move units. If Apple makes it, people will buy it.

We're guessing that's probably what keeps marketing managers of companies not named Apple up at night. At any rate, congrats to Apple for selling so many, but we have to point out that having the 4S on Sprint and launching it in a variety of countries around the world probably helped matters.

iPhone 4S First Weekend Sales Top Four Million

CUPERTINO, California—October 17, 2011— Apple® today announced it has sold over four million of its new iPhone® 4S, just three days after its launch on October 14. In addition, more than 25 million customers are already using iOS 5, the world’s most advanced mobile operating system, in the first five days of its release, and more than 20 million customers have signed up for iCloud®, a breakthrough set of free cloud services that automatically and wirelessly store your content in iCloud and push it to all your devices. iPhone 4S is available today in the US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the UK, and will be available in 22 more countries on October 28 and more than 70 countries by the end of the year.

“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,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “iPhone 4S is a hit with customers around the world, and together with iOS 5 and iCloud, is the best iPhone ever.”

iPhone 4S is the most amazing iPhone yet, packed with incredible new features including Apple’s dual-core A5 chip for blazing fast performance and stunning graphics; an all new camera with advanced optics; full 1080p HD resolution video recording; and Siri™, an intelligent assistant that helps you get things done just by asking.

Pricing & Availability
iPhone 4S comes in either black or white and is available in the US for a suggested retail price of $199 (US) for the 16GB model, $299 (US) for the 32GB model and $399 (US) for the new 64GB model.* iPhone 4S is available from the Apple Online Store, Apple’s retail stores and through AT&T, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, and select Best Buy, Target and Walmart stores and select Apple Authorized Resellers. iPhone 4 is available for just $99 (US) and iPhone 3GS is available for free with a two year contract.

iPhone 4S will be available on October 28 in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.