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CAPE FEAR MEMORIAL BRIDGE CLOSURE: UPDATES, RESOURCES, AND CONTEXT

iPhone 4S Sales Top 4 Million In First Weekend

<p>An Apple Store customer looks at the new Apple iPhone 4S on Oct. 14 in San Francisco.</p>
Justin Sullivan
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Getty Images

An Apple Store customer looks at the new Apple iPhone 4S on Oct. 14 in San Francisco.

Apple announced today that its iPhone 4S has sold more than four million units in the three days after it went on sale.

"iPhone 4S is off to a great start with more than four million sold in its first weekend—the most ever for a phone and more than double the iPhone 4 launch during its first three days," Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, said in a statement. "iPhone 4S is a hit with customers around the world, and together with iOS 5 and iCloud, is the best iPhone ever."

That's surprising because when it was announced it seemed most of the tech press was saying Apple's newest incarnation of the iPhone was a dud. It was so badly panned by reviewers who were expecting an iPhone 5 instead of an incremental upgrade, that Apple stock dropped 5 percent after the announcement.

PC World spoke to tech analysts who pinned the record sales two big things: the 4S was released after a longer-than-usual wait, creating "pent-up demand" and for the first time ever the iPhone is now available on all three major wireless carriers. Sprint got the iPhone for the first time this weekend.

And just how big is that four million number? Wired puts it in context saying that it's "half as many units as the best-selling gadget in history (Xbox Kinect) sold in two months."

Wired predicts it'll eclipse that record.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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Eyder Peralta is NPR's East Africa correspondent based in Nairobi, Kenya.