iPhone 4S pre-orders top 3M after one weekend, 25M on track this quarter

New estimates from Wall Street analysts suggest Apple registered more than 3 million pre-orders for its newest smartphone, the iPhone 4S, after selling the device for one weekend.

Apple announced this morning it registered pre-orders for more than 1 million iPhone 4S phones in 24 hours, well beyond its previous record of 600,000 phones. New estimates peg the initial weekend’s sales to be somewhere north of 3 million, according to RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky. That means Apple could sell more than 25 million iPhones in its fourth operating quarter this year, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said.

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The last time Apple launched an iPhone, it was only available on AT&T. Apple opened the iPhone 4 up to Verizon Wireless in February this year. This time around, Apple is launching the phone on the three largest wireless carriers in the United States simultaneously, with the addition of Sprint. The iPhone 4 sold out in around 17 hours when it launched on Verizon Wireless in January. It also sold out in less than 24 hours on AT&T when it launched in June last year.

The iPhone 4S sports significant hardware upgrades, though it looks identical to the iPhone 4. The phone runs Apple’s A5 dual-core processor and reportedly has more memory. It also has an 8-megapixel camera, compared to the iPhone 5’s 5-megapixel camera. Apple normally releases a new phone every year, but the company atypically released the iPhone 4S later this year, just after its most recent operating quarter ended September 25.

Pre-orders for the iPhone 4S began Friday last week. The company will start shipping the phone this Friday Oct. 14. It’s available with a new 2-year contract for $199, $299 and $399 for the 16GB, 32GB and 64GB models of the phone respectively. The phone is available on AT&T, Sprint and Verizon Wireless.  The iPhone 4S will make its worldwide debut October 14 in United States, Australia, Japan, Canada, France, Germany and the U.K.