Apple Inc. iPhone 6, 6 Plus Pre-orders In China Surpass 20M

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Apple Inc. NASDAQ:AAPL’s iPhone 6 and 6 Plus shattered all sales records by selling more than 10 million units in the U.S. and elsewhere in the opening weekend. The company had received over four million pre-orders in the first 24 hours. But that’s nothing to the response Apple’s new devices have received in China alone.

JD.com alone receives close to 10 million iPhone 6 pre-orders

Pre-orders for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in China began on October 10. Until Monday morning, retailer JingDong Mall (JD.com) and telecom carriers have collectively received more than 20 million pre-orders for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. Note that the figure doesn’t include bookings accepting by Apple or its more than 6,000 resellers in China.

Chinese Internet giant Tencent reported that JD.com alone has received over 9.49 million bookings until Monday morning. Of that 4.66 million bookings were for the iPhone 6 and 4.82 million for the 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus. Meanwhile, three major telecom operators China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom collectively processed over 10 million bookings.

Earlier this month, reports surfaced that Chinese retailers and carriers had received a whopping two million bookings in just six hours. The arrival of iPhone 6 and 6 Plus to China was delayed due to regulatory approvals. Delivery of the new iPhones will begin on Friday, October 17. The tech giant has reportedly asked its suppliers to produce 80 million units of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus by the end of this year. Only time will tell whether the company underestimated the consumer response.

Bendgate had little impact on Chinese consumers

Delayed launch of new iPhones in China prompted Apple’s arch-rival Samsung to release its Galaxy Note 4 earlier than scheduled. Note 4 went for sale in China and South Korea late last month. Looks like the recent ‘bendgate’ controversy had little impact on Apple’s Chinese fans. Last month, several videos of the iPhone 6 Plus bending in the users’ pockets went viral on the web. But bending test results from Apple and Consumer Reports showed that the device was not as fragile as many believed.

Apple shares rose 0.29% to $101.02 at 10:22 AM EDT on Monday.

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