Apple announced on Monday that it took more than one million preorders for the iPhone 4S in seven countries last Friday, making it the fastest-selling iPhone ever.
In comparison, Apple sold just over 600,000 preorders for the iPhone 4 last year.
"We are blown away with the incredible customer response to iPhone 4S," said Philip Schiller, Apple's SVP of marketing, in a press release. "The first day pre-orders for iPhone 4S have been the most for any new product that Apple has ever launched and we are thrilled that customers love iPhone 4S as much as we do."
The iPhone 4S broke sales records for at least one of its carriers as well. AT&T said it sold more than 200,000 of them in the first 12 hours of preorder sales. No numbers yet from Verizon, while first-time iPhone carrier Sprint simply said, "We were very pleased with the interest we received in pre-orders for the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S, the response from consumers has certainly exceeded our expectations."
On Sunday The Next Web speculated that Apple logged 1.7 million preorders in three days for its fifth iPhone, though it might have sold more if launch day stock wasn't "sold out" at Apple's online store or carrier websites.
The iPhone 4S, which starts at $199, is due to hit stores this Friday, October 14. As PCMag editor-in-chief Dan Costa noted in his Hands On With the Apple iPhone 4S last week, the iPhone 4S looks exactly the same as the iPhone 4 on the outside, but with souped up software and components, like a dual-core A5 processor, an 8-megapixel sensor with 60 percent more pixels, Siri voice controls, and iOS 5, which will be released for free on October 12 along with iCloud. See the slideshow below for more hands-on photos.
Apple began preorder sales of the iPhone 4S last Friday in the U.S., U.K., Japan, Australia, Canada, France, and Germany. It will be available to 22 countries by the end of October.
Disappointed that Apple didn't announce an iPhone 5 last week? Read 5 Reasons Not to Be Bummed By the iPhone 4S for more. Also check out Battle of the iPhones: iPhone 4S vs. 4 vs. 3GS.