China, the world’s largest mobile phone market, is getting a late start with Apple’s new iPhones — the big and bigger ones, designed in large part with the Chinese market in mind.
Pre-orders don’t officially start until Oct. 10 and the phones won’t go on sale before Oct. 17, but you can already see the virtual queues growing.
You can literally watch them grow. In China you have to make a reservation to get on the pre-order list, and at least one Chinese e-commerce site — JingDong — has been posting reservations as they come in. Unless Apple puts a stop to it, JingDong’s reporting is a good proxy for how sales are likely to go.
At 11 p.m. Friday Beijing time, the split between the two models was nearly even:
- iPhone 6: 1,372,160
- iPhone 6+: 1,473,075
.
Based partly on JingDong reservation numbers, Tencent news estimates that in the four days since the iPhones were approved for sale in China, reservations topped 4 million.
UPDATE: By Saturday reservations on JingDong alone had passed 6 million, having doubled overnight. JingDong’s split, as of 7:30 p.m. Beijing time:
- iPhone 6: 3,020,359
- iPhone 6+: 3,133,027
.
Warning: We could be seeing a Heisenberg effec t here: U.S. Press reports on JingJong’s numbers making their way to mainland China and sending Chinese customers/scalpers to JingJong’s site.
[Refresh the JingDong page for updates.]
See also: First iPhone 6/6+ numbers from China
Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter at @philiped. Read his Apple (AAPL) coverage at coins2day.com/ped or subscribe via his RSS feed.
