China shows Apple some love with over 1 million preorders of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in just 6 hours

Apple’s iPhone 6 and 6 Plus officially went live for pre-order in China in the second week of October. According to data, three mobile providers accepted over 1 million in demand just after the go signal for pre-orders were given.

China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom, three of the country’s largest networks, were the ones who released this information. The numbers that were received by Apple’s China website haven’t been counted yet in the figures provided by the 3 telecom companies.

Apart from the pre-orders, news sites say that more than 6,700 authorized reseller stores in China will carry the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus when the units official get released on October 17.

An estimated number of 6.5 million units for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus will arrive in China at the first week of the gadget’s release. Not all will arrive at the same, however. It is estimated that the 6.5 million units will need 2 days to deliver, with 50% of the supplies entering the country on the first day.

Even before the pre-ordering of units officially began in China, Chinese telecommunications companies have already received millions of reservation calls from citizens who want to get their hands on Apple’s new smart gadgets. Fortune stated that the website JingDong has listed around 9 million reservations. The demand for both units is almost 50-50. Around 4.6 million people showed interest in getting the iPhone 6, while 4.7 million people reserved for an iPhone 6 Plus unit.

The new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus will have a new feature called the Touch ID that will allow users to unlock their devices as well as access iTunes and make App Store purchases with the use of fingerprint identification.

During Apple U.S.’ first weekend sales of its latest smart gadgets, the company was able to sell an estimated number of 10 million units. It’s quite possibly the biggest number made by Apple during a two-day sale, and those numbers are estimated to grow to more than 110 million units before the year ends.

Apple’s response to competitors
China is known for having companies that capitalize on the original design of others. Xiaomi, known as the “Apple of China,” has continued making waves in out of the country for selling top-of-the-line smart gadgets that are on par with Apple and other big smart gadget makers. However, critics say that Xiaomi’s success cannot be attributed to its own ideas and design. Xiaomi’s Mi 4 smartphone has always been compared to the iPhone 4, and they do indeed share some resemblance to each other. Check out the pictures below.

While some people say that imitation is the best form of compliment, Apple’s lead designer Sir Jonathan I’ve says otherwise. Speaking at the Vanity Fair event, the 47-year-old Apple executive said: “I don’t see it as flattery, I see it as theft.”

I’ve was responding to a question from an attendee about Xiaomi but he was referring to Apple’s competition in general.

Apart from Xiaomi, Samsung has been on the hotseat before for allegedly copying Apple products. However, it seems that the company is out of Apple’s sights for now. According to O2’s page, the new Samsung Galaxy Note 4 has very different features and finish than the iPhone 6.

Despite Apple’s stance on its competitor Xiaomi, a lot are actually defending the latter for its ability to create powerful gadgets at very low prices. Former Google executive who now works for Xiaomi says that his new company is “an incredibly innovative” one.

Xiaomi’s Mi 5 is still under development and the company hasn’t released a prototype of it yet. But whether or not its design will carry the same finish of the iPhone 6 or 6 Plus, the more than 1 million pre-orders and reservations for Apple’s latest smart gadgets say a lot. People in China still believe in the power of Apple, whose iPhone 6 and 6 Plus seemed to have crushed a lot of top-of-the-line smartphones in performance tests despite only carrying a dual-core processor.