Pre-orders of Apple's iPhone 5 Topped Two Million in 24 hours

Apple today announced pre-orders of its iPhone 5 topped two million in 24 hours, more than double the previous record of one million held by iPhone 4S.

"iPhone 5 pre-orders have shattered the previous record held by iPhone 4S and the customer response to iPhone 5 has been phenomenal," Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, said. "iPhone 5 is the best iPhone yet, the most beautiful product we've ever made, and we hope customers love it as much as we do."

Demand for iPhone 5 exceeds the initial supply and while the majority of pre-orders will be delivered to customers on September 21, many are scheduled to be delivered in October.

The iPhone 5 features a 4-inch display and aluminum and glass body. It is the thinnest and lightest phone that Apple has ever made at 7.6 mm thin - 18 percent thinner and 20 percent lighter than the 4S. The iPhone 5 has a resolution of 1,136 x 640 or 326 pixels per inch. The larger screen has a widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio and has lengthened the phone overall. It allows for a total of six rows of apps on the screen - five rows on the "pages" along with the permanent single row along the bottom.

"iPhone 5 is the most beautiful consumer device that we've ever created," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. "We've packed an amazing amount of innovation and advanced technology into a thin and light, jewel-like device with a stunning 4-inch Retina display, blazing fast A6 chip, ultrafast wireless, even longer battery life; and we think customers are going to love it."

The iPhone 5 is the company's first 4G LTE phone and will work in the U.S. with AT&T, Verizon, Sprint; Bell, Virgin et al in Canada; Singtel and Telstra in Australasia; Deutsche Telecom and EE in the UK. Still no iPhone for T-Mobile.

Apple also unveiled a new processor, the Apple A6, for the new iPhone. Apple said A6 is twice as fast as A5, 22 percent smaller and more power efficient - increasing performance while using less battery life.

JP Morgan economist Michael Feroli said he believes that the release of the iPhone 5 could boost Q4 GDP by $3.2 billion, or $12.8 billion at an annual rate.

Feroli said he expects that Apple will sell around 8 million iPhone 5s in the United States in the fourth quarter, and sales of previous generation iPhones will continue to sell at a solid pace.

iPhone 5 will be available at 356 Apple retail stores in the U.S. beginning at 8 a.m. local time on Friday, Sept. 21. iPhone 5 comes in either white & silver or black & slate, and will be available in the U.S. for a suggested retail price of $199 for the 16GB model and $299 for the 32GB model and $399 or the 64GB model.

iPhone 5 will be available from the Apple Online Store (www.apple.com), Apple's retail stores, and through AT&T, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, select Best Buy, RadioShack, Target and Walmart stores and select Apple Authorized Resellers. iPhone 4S will also be available for just $99 and iPhone 4 will be available for free with a two-year contract.

iPhone 5 will roll out worldwide to 22 more countries on September 28, including Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.