Apple’s iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus have been sales smashes. The new smartphones have destroyed records by storming to 5 million in pre-order sales and topping 10 million units over their first weekend on sale. The devices managed this without a launch in China, the biggest smartphone market and the most populated country in the world.

I wrote back last week that if Apple had been able to roll out the iPhone 6/6 Plus in China (regulatory permission delayed the launch) then that 10 million over the first weekend would have looked more like 14 million. It turns out I was wrong because now that China has confirmed the new iPhone for sale it looks as though my prediction will be positively conservative.

The iPhone 6 or 6 Plus are not even available for pre-order yet (that happens October 10th) but already customers are swarming to the device, with 2 million reserving an iPhone from China’s various carriers. That is utterly amazing and I should point out that these are just signalling their intention to buy, these are the people who could be bothered to reserve and not just pick one up when the pre-order window opens. This huge number of 2 million was achieved in just 6 hours.

To put that into perspective, the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus hit 5 million pre-orders within 24 hours in nine countries (including key markets like the US and UK). China is nearly half way to beating that just by reservations. When the pre-order window opens, those reserves will likely jump by around a million into sales. Even thinking conservatively, Apple will shift at least 3 million new iPhones when the 10th October arrives.

Of course, I have not even discussed the actual hard launch when the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus will be available in bricks and mortar Chinese retailers. Demand in the country is huge and we can expect to see at least another 3 million units sold on October 17th when the shop doors open. So even being humble in my numbers, Apple could be on course to sell 6 million units of the iPhone 6 series off the bat in one country. Apple’s bottom line is looking better by the day.

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