 |
| Consumers wait in line outside the Fifth Avenue Apple store for the release of the iPhone 5, in New York on Friday. |
It was possible to walk into a store Saturday and buy an
iPhone 5, but it took some hunting.
Some stores
reported having Apple’s newest phone available for walk-up customers,
though not all versions of it. A random check of about a dozen stores
indicated that most were sold out.
A Verizon store
in New York City said the 32 and 64 gigabyte models, but not the 16 GB
version, were available. A Sprint store in a suburb of St. Paul,
Minnesota, said all but the most expensive 64 GB iPhone 5s were sold
out.
“Before we were even scheduled to open, we were
pretty much out,” said Eric Rayburn, a worker at a Sprint store in
Phoenix.
The iPhone 5 went on sale Friday, igniting
intense interest around the world. Apple’s website said phones bought
online would ship in three to four weeks. Verizon’s website said they
would ship by October 19.
It’s hardly uncommon for
supply shortages to make it difficult to get new iPhones in the first
days after their release. For Apple, the iPhone introduction is the
biggest revenue driver of the year. Analysts say the company will likely
sell millions of phones in the first few days.
There
were long lines Friday at Apple’s stores in Asia, Europe and North
America as customers pursued the new smartphone. Apple and the phone
companies haven’t provided sales figures from the first day. Apple is
expected to announce early results Monday
Last year,
Apple said on the Monday after the launch of the iPhone 4S that it had
sold 4 million in the first three days.
