Apple's iPhone 5S, iPhone 5C Surpass Previous Record With 9 Million Sold

Apple AAPL has surpassed expectations after selling a combined total of nine million iPhone units last weekend. Beating the previous record by four million units, the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C have propelled the Cupertino, California-based tech giant to a new sales record. "This is our best iPhone launch yet -- more than nine million new iPhones sold -- a new record for first weekend sales," Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a company release. "The demand for the new iPhones has been incredible, and while we've sold out of our initial supply of iPhone 5s, stores continue to receive new iPhone shipments regularly. We appreciate everyone's patience and are working hard to build enough new iPhones for everyone." Apple was expected to sell no more than eight million units. Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster did not expect Apple to sell more than six million units. Trip Chowdhry, the Managing Director of Equity Research at Global Equities Research, predicted that this would be Apple's biggest product launch yet. "The new iPhones will be massively successful," Chowdhry told Benzinga in August. "This will be the most successful product launch ever in the history of Apple." Related: Apple's 64-Bit iPhone 5S Processor Delivers An "Order Of Magnitude" Difference Unlike the iPhone 5, which was largely promoted as a form factor adjustment, Apple decided to release its latest iPhone in two varieties. While there has been very little fan attention toward the iPhone 5C (mostly because it is a plastic version of last year's iPhone 5), the iPhone 5S flew off store shelves when it became available on Friday, September 20. The iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C are currently available in 11 countries: the United States, Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore and the United Kingdom. Over the past few years, Apple has worked hard to launch the iPhone in multiple nations simultaneously. This is the first time that it arrived in China at the same time as it arrived in the United States, however. In addition to the iPhone sales data, Apple also announced that more than 200 million iOS devices are now running iOS 7. According to Apple, this makes it the fastest software upgrade in history. Disclosure: At the time of this writing, Louis Bedigian had no position in the equities mentioned in this report. Louis Bedigian is the Senior Tech Analyst and Features Writer of Benzinga. You can reach him at louis(at)benzingapro(dot)com. Follow him @LouisBedigianBZ