Demand for Apple’s iPhone 11 appears to be good, especially the new colors

Apple’s iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max went up for pre-order on Friday. Apple won’t share any official sales data for a while, but respected analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is here to offer some early observations.

According to Kuo (via 9to5Mac) who bases his analysis mostly on Apple’s online shipping estimates, overall demand is ahead of expectations, and there’s strong demand for the new colors — midnight green for the iPhone 11 Pro/Max, and green as well as purple for the iPhone 11.

I’ve checked Apple’s U.S. website and for the iPhone 11 with 64GB of storage, shipping times are 5-7 days for all colors, except green and purple, which ship in 2-3 weeks. 

For the iPhone 11 Pro and the 11 Pro Max, the situation is a bit more complex, with some models shipping on Sept. 20, some in 7-10 days, and some 2-3 weeks, but midnight green does typically ship later than other colors. 

According to Kuo, production problems for the midnight green color may be contributing to that model’s lower availability. 

Kuo also claims that while the demand is higher for the iPhone 11 Pro in the U.S., in China the cheaper, iPhone 11 appears to be the more popular model. A report by CNBC, which quotes Chinese authorized Apple reseller Fenqile, corroborates this, claiming that the majority of pre-orders in China were for the iPhone 11. 

Kuo also says that Apple’s trade-in program and payment plans with zero-interest rates are working, prompting more people to upgrade. 

The iPhone 11, 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max come to stores on Friday, Sept. 20. 

There’s never a lack of iPhone sales estimates post-launch — and we’ll likely see many more reports in the coming weeks. But we won’t really know how Apple’s new flagships are selling until the company posts its earnings results for the fiscal 2019 first quarter, which ends in Dec. 2019. It’s worth noting that Apple stopped breaking down unit sales for individual products in its earnings reports last year, following lower-than-expected iPhone sales.