How the iPhone 6 launch measures up to other smartphone releases

Impressive doesn’t even begin to describe the iPhone 6 launch. Within just 24 hours, Apple broke its sales records thanks to over 4 million in pre-orders for the new smartphone. To say that Apple fans are loyal would be an understatement.

What’s most interesting, however, is just how vast the margin is between pre-order sales for the iPhone 5 and the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. While the iPhone 5 did bring in 2 million in pre-order sales within the first 24 hours — which is nothing to sneeze at — the iPhone 6 pre-orders are double that amount. Could that huge phablet-sized screen on the 6 Plus really be making that much of an impression?

It would appear so, at least on the surface. Of course, these latest pre-order stats fall right in line with the upward trajectory of Apple sales success. The iPhone 4s saw 1 million in pre-orders in the first 24 hours of availability. Before that, the iPhone 4 saw 600,000 pre-orders. And if you want to take it all the way back, the first-gen iPhone saw just 270,000 pre-orders.

So far, we’ve been comparing apples to apples here, if you’ll pardon the pun. It’s all fine and well to look at how Apple has faired against itself in smartphone releases but how does it stack up in comparison to other smartphone brands? The Samsung Galaxy is Apple’s closest competitor. Unfortunately, that company doesn’t release its actual sales numbers, for pre-orders or otherwise, so it’s a bit difficult to say precisely how this latest data measures up.

One thing we do know for certain is when the Galaxy S5 launched in April of this year, it likely shipped around 10 million units within the first 25 days of its release. It’s important to note that this is not the same thing as sales, however. Shipped units simply refers to the number of items shipped to retailers and carriers. This is an uptick in shipments for Samsung, since the Galaxy S4 took 27 days to reach the same 10 million shipped milestone. And the Galaxy S III took 50 days to achieve this marker.

What does it all mean? Apple appears to be living up to its own hype. And that’s definitely worth noting.