With China buying too, iPhone 6S online orders could take weeks to ship

The iPhone 6S could set a sales record for Apple -- in large part because it was made available in China from Day One.

The company announced Monday that online orders of the iPhone 6S, including the bigger-screened Plus variety, are on pace to exceed 10 million over the new two weeks, set to surpass the record first-few-weeks sales mark the iPhone 6 hit a year ago. The iPhone 6 wasn’t available in China for about the first month.

China doubles the potential customer pool for iPhone sales, Walt Piecyk, an analyst at BTIG Research, noted Monday. He expects a quarterly-record 80 million iPhones to be sold worldwide during the last three months of this year.

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Despite a turbulent economy, Chinese consumers seem to be maintaining interest in the expensive new iPhones, “a positive sign that [Apple’s] white-hot momentum out of this region shows no signs of abating,” Daniel Ives, an analyst at FBR & Co., said in a note to investors Monday. Apple holds about 15% share of the Chinese smartphone market.

Apple began accepting online orders for the new smartphones over the weekend, though the devices won’t be delivered or be available in stores until Sept. 25. With purchases of the iPhone 6S Plus in particular topping supply, people ordering online might have to wait up to four weeks to receive their shipment.

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Apple says the iPhone 6S and the iPhone 6S Plus have newer cameras that support filming 4K videos, can handle faster Internet connection speeds and come with a new display technology called 3D Touch that allows users to pull up new menus and information by varying the force of their tap on the screen.

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