Apple's latest iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus smartphones have generated a whopping four million reservations in China by Friday, Oct. 3, according to Chinese media estimates.
The new-generation iPhones went on sale on Sept. 19 in the U.S. and other markets across the world, but China wasn't one of them. It took longer for Apple to gain the necessary approvals for launching the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in the country, but it finally got the green light earlier this week.
The company confirmed on Tuesday, Sept. 30, that it received clearance to start selling its latest iPhones in China, and kicked off reservations for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.
According to Chinese media estimates, the new iPhones have already seen 4 million reservations in the country. A single e-commerce site called Jingdong took 2.3 million reservations, Chinese website Tencent reported, as cited by Fortune. It all remains a bit unclear, however, as Apple has not offered any estimates just yet regarding iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus reservations in China.
Chinese website Sina, for instance, published a report on Thursday, Oct. 2, claiming that "incomplete statistics" indicated that Chinese carriers and retailers booked two million reservations for the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in the first six hours. The estimates cited in the aforementioned Forbes report, meanwhile, said that China's three major mobile carriers made one million of those reservations, while the other million were from retailers.
The three major carriers in the country - China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom - are accepting reservations for the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus, as are a number of China's largest Apple licensed retailers such as Gome and Sunning, added Forbes. China Unicom reportedly registered 600,000 reservations alone in the first couple of hours, one source noted.
As Fortune itself points, out, however, reservations are not the same as pre-orders. Reservations merely mirror one's interest to buy a product, but they're not actual commitments to buy the item and pick it up in-store or have it shipped once it's ready to hit commercial availability.
The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are set to go up for pre-order on Apple's online store in China starting on Friday, Oct. 10, and will officially go on sale in the country on Oct. 17.
It remains to be seen whether these estimate reservations mirror the real demand for the smartphones, but we'll keep you up to date as soon as we learn more.
