ITVoice News: iPhone 6 has not marked success for Apple Inc. only. American multinational telecommunications corporation, AT&T, has also built its own records. Consumers tried to order new iPhones at a large scale as pre-orders began after Friday midnight.
According to CNET, in a statement, AT&T Mobility CEO Glenn Lurie, cited, “This is our biggest Phone, pre-order launch day ever.” Some other sites have also faced challenges as loading became a problem due to error messages. This kind of slow-down is a clear hint that lots of phones have already been ordered.
Partnership between AT&T and Apple is a long-term one. The journey started back in 2007 when the first iPhone’s exclusive carrier was AT&T. AT&T owned sole rights on selling iPhone for three consecutive years. Later on, the right got divided between AT&T and Verizon Wireless.
AT&T spokesperson Mark Siegel has told Re/code that iPhones’ demand has raised in comparison to past two years. Records say, Apple along with other major carriers, have sold out the larger iPhone6 Plus, through their pre-order allotments. All of them have maintained that this model will take longer shipping time. In Verizon, 64GB iPhone 6 Plus is listed to be shipped by mid-October. The same model will take shipping time of 35-42 days, as per AT&T. Apple says it will take three weeks to four weeks, which means before October there is no hope.
But in comparison to other carriers like T-Mobile, Sprint and Apple’s own store, AT&T is doing relatively well in terms of online pre-orders. But this kind of rush is nothing new to AT&T. Sprint’s website faced a temporary slow-down on Friday mid-morning and an error message, “We’ll be back”, appeared repeatedly. If someone tried to order the larger iPhone on T-Mobile, the message appeared as, “Due to high demand, your Apple product may not be available for immediate shipping. Once we are able to complete your order, you will receive a notification when your product has shipped.”
A new update, as reported by Re/code, says that an Apple representative has announced that a new record has been set in the iPhone history, following the overnight sales. Though the number of sales has not been confirmed by Apple, so far. Apple has told Re/code exclusively, “Response to iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus has been incredible with a record number of preorders overnight.” Meanwhile, Sprint also termed the response as “strong” but they have also not released any pre-order sales numbers.
