Lines Begin To Form Outside Key Apple Store As New iPhones Set To Arrive

Apple’s iPhone event is still four days away, but that hasn’t stopped people from beginning to form lines at retail stores to await new products. At the same time, we’re beginning to hear our first estimates on how many iPhones could be sold in the coming days and months. The first photos from outside Apple’s flagship Fifth Avenue store in Manhattan prove that excitement is building for the iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S. These photos, taken by Sell Your Mac’s Jon Murphy, show that there are already folks camping out, two weeks before the handsets probably go on sale around the world on Friday, Sept. 20. Meanwhile, AllThingsD notes that iPhone sales for the quarter ending Sept. 29 could top 31 million. Of those, 10 million could be new models sold in the final nine days of the quarter. As Pacific Crest Analyst Andy Hargreaves states:

We expect Apple to launch two new iPhones at its Sept. 10 event, an iPhone 5S and an iPhone 5C, which we believe is essentially an iPhone 5 with a different case. We expect these refreshes, along with the potential for incremental distribution of the iPhone, to drive improved unit volume, stabilized gross margin and accelerating operating profit in the coming quarters.

These estimates suggest that Apple could be looking at another sales record. In 2012, Apple sold 7 million iPhone 5 units in nine days to end the fourth-quarter. Hargreaves also suggests that the number this year could be closer to 13 million with some “extremely efficient supply chain management.” For the holiday quarter, he believes Apple could sell 50 million iPhone units. As usual, we’ll continue to follow this story. In the meantime, we’d like to know whether you plan on buying a new iPhone in the coming days. If you do, which model do you expect to buy?

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