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"Apple has said that it was &amp;quot;blown away&amp;quot; by the customer response to its recently-announced iPhone 5, after pre-orders topped two million in just 24 hours, double the demand seen for the iPhone 4S.  The next generation handset reportedly sold out of its initial stock in the US within an hour after orders started on September 14, pushing shipping times back by around two to three weeks. The US technology giant has now announced that advanced pre-orders for the iPhone 5 topped 2m in just 24 hours worldwide, double the previous record of 1m held by the iPhone 4S last year.  &amp;quot;iPhone 5 pre-orders have shattered the previous record held by iPhone 4S and the customer response to iPhone 5 has been phenomenal,&amp;quot; said Philip Schiller, Apple&amp;#039;s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing.  &amp;quot;iPhone 5 is the best iPhone yet, the most beautiful product we&amp;#039;ve ever made, and we hope customers love it as much as we do.&amp;quot;  Apple spokesperson Natalie Kerris told The Loop that the firm had been &amp;quot;completely blown away by the consumer response&amp;quot;.  Customer demand for the iPhone 5 appears to be unaffected by its price tag. At \u00A3529 for the base model in the UK, it is the most expensive smartphone the firm has released. The pre-order sales make the device the most popular Apple handset at launch, with the previous iPhone 4S model taking 22 hours to sell out its initial pre-order stock in the US, while the iPhone 4 took 20 hours. Apple is expected to shift around 6 million handsets in the opening weekend of iPhone 5 sales, and could sell a staggering 10m in the first week. Initial pre-order shipments and in-store sales of the iPhone 5 will begin in nine countries, including the US and UK, on September 21. Photo gallery - the iPhone 5:  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tech/apple/news/a406400/apple-blown-away-by-iphone-5-pre-orders/>