SearchingPC

iPhone 5 sales top 5 million, but miss some estimates...

Customers picked up five million copies of the iPhone 5 in the first three days the device was on sale, according to Apple. In a press statement released today, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the new smartphone, which is currently available in a range of European, Asian, and North American markets, had exceeded initial supplies, and predicted that some pre-orders would not ship until next month.

The truth about iPhone 5's first weekend sales

Apple supporters triumphantly cheered on the company after it sold 5 million iPhones over the weekend. Wall Street, however, was disappointed by the figure after seeing the long lines on Friday.

The correct reaction probably lies somewhere in the middle. Perhaps a polite golf clap?

For analysts, it was a classic case of hype feeding into the estimates, which ramped up to as high as 10 million for the first weekend, numbers that even a power house like Apple couldn't hope to achieve.

"We find it unfortunate that some analysts continue to publish irresponsible estimates without taking into account realistic demand trends and potential supply constraints," said Shaw Wu, an analyst at Sterne Agee.

On the flip side, while 5 million is an impressively high number, and is 1 million better than last year's iPhone 4S launch, it isn't a genuine indicator of the longer-term appeal of the iPhone 5. There was so much pent-up demand that Apple would have sold out of however many phones it had in stock.

The truth behind that first weekend statistic that Apple proudly proclaims is the number isn't really relevant as you might think. It's a nice figure to boast about, window dressing, and it certainly fuels the hype and illusion that Apple is invincible. But in reality, that's about it.

The true test of the phone's longevity in the market won't come until after the key holiday season, when many high-profile smartphones start to see a pullback in sales and the euphoria of the recent iPhone launch hype has long faded away.