Apple confirms 4 million Iphone 4S sales

CAPPUCCINO COMPANY Apple has confirmed that it has sold four million of its Iphone 4S, and then it shut up and stopped talking about sales altogether.

At the end of last week analysts were predicting that there would be a large number of Iphone 4S sales, or one was at least, and today the firm issued a release that confirmed the news as well as other big numbers for its recent products.

"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 SVP 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."

Apple also revealed that 25 million have downloaded IOS 5 and 20 million have signed up for Icloud, the firm's server-based offering.

We asked for a bit more information about the sales, specifically whether the 4 million handsets had been sold into the channel or sold to consumers. The number is very high, given that Apple sold 1.7 million Iphone 4 units in its three days, for comparison's sake, and the number needs some clarification.

Yankee Group analyst Carl Howe told The INQUIRER, "I've heard figures that Apple built more than 4 million units for launch; all carriers currently show sold out," which suggests that the current stock has been depleted and that Apple will release more to follow.

Apple has not responded to our question, but it has been sending around information about the popularity of the handset. On October 10, just a few days before it was released to queues in just seven countries around the world, the company said that it had taken one million pre-orders,

Today the handsets, which start at £499 at the Apple store and are limited to two per customer, are not in stock in their native land, and Apple is suggesting that fulfillment of orders will take up to two weeks. µ