iPhone 4S tops 3m pre-orders

Around 3m customers have pre-ordered the upcoming Apple iPhone 4S in less than one week.

Bloomberg Businessweek reports 3m units of the new smartphone may be sold in its first weekend on sale, according to RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky.

That would be almost double the number of iPhone 4s sold during its opening weekend last year.

The early momentum of the iPhone 4S reaffirms Apple’s leadership in smartphones,” said JPMorgan & Chase Co analyst Mark Moskowitz.

He added that the high pre-order numbers suggest customers are not concerned about the lack of new design. The iPhone 4S instead gets a number of internal hardware upgrades such as Apple’s dual-core A5 chip, 1080p video recording, iCloud and voice command system Siri.

Apple may also sell over 25m iPhones in its fiscal quarter ending in December, according to Piper Jaffray Cos analyst Gene Munster.

The iPhone 4S goes on sale this Friday, October 14th in the UK, US, Australia, Japan, Canada, France and Germany. It will roll out to a total of 22 countries by the end of October.