The debut of its much-anticipated iPhone5 has led to record sales for AT&T.
The company announced Monday that this weekend’s release of its sleeker, more technologically sophisticated new iPhone5 resulted in more than two million sales in just 24 hours, more than doubling the previous record of one million held by iPhone 4S.
In fact, demand for the iPhone 5 is so great that it has exceeded the initial supply, meaning the majority of pre-orders will be delivered to customers on September 21, while the others are scheduled to be delivered in October.
“iPhone 5 pre-orders have shattered the previous record held by iPhone 4S and the customer response to iPhone 5 has been phenomenal,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing in an interview with Yahoo.com. “iPhone 5 is the best iPhone yet, the most beautiful product we’ve ever made, and we hope customers love it as much as we do.”
The iPhone 5 has a bigger screen — 4 inches measured diagonally — that creates room for another row of icons and lets widescreen movies fit better. The calendar will now show five days at a time instead of just three. Previous iPhone models carried 3.5-inch screens.
The iPhone 5 also comes with the capability to connect to the fastest new wireless data networks in the U.S. and overseas.
AT&T customers were first able to begin pre-ordering the device this past Friday and can still do so. The iPhone5 is available for $199.99 for the 16GB model, while the 32GB edition and 64 GB version run at $299.99 and $399.99, respectively.
The iPhone5 will be available at stores as of Friday. Every customer who buys an iPhone 5 at an Apple retail store will be offered free Personal Setup service, helping them customize their iPhone 5 by setting up email, showing them new apps from the App Store and more, so they’ll be up and running with their new iPhone before they leave the store.
The phone’s arrival has hailed for its new design as much as its larger display, a new dock connector, LTE, and a faster processor.
The iPhone5’s thinner body and aluminum back plate are more aesthetically-pleasing, while still user-friendly.
Gone is the glass from the back of the iPhone 4S that too often mandated its users clean off fingerprints.
The wider screen means users can more easily stretch their thumb across the screen while allowing for another row of icons when you’re on the home screen.
The iPhone 5 will roll out worldwide to 22 more countries on September 28, including Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
