The iPhone 6 and its 5.5-inch counterpart won’t start shipping until September 19th, but the first shipments have reportedly already reached U.S. shores. According to China’s Civil Aviation Network, an initial iPhone 6 and 6 Plus shipment weighing in at 14.5 tons departed from Zhengzhou Xinzheng International on September 6th in order to arrive in time for Apple’s keynote address. A second, larger batch of 78.5 tons shipped on September 10th.
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The cost of the entire 93 ton shipment was reportedly over 200 million yuan ($32.6 million), breaking revenue records for China Southern Henan Airlines. Ironically, China didn’t make the cut for the September 19th launch in 10 markets, which include the U.S., Canada, France, Germany and Japan. The cargo arrived in Chicago earlier this week.
Through some rough calculations, MacRumors has determined that these shipments could hold around 720,000 iPhone 6 units, 540,000 iPhone 6 Plus or some combination of the two.
Huge shipments are expected to continue in the coming days and weeks as Apple fills store shelves with its new phones. If the iPhone 6 launch is anything like the iPhone 5s launch, it won’t be long before Apple needs to start restocking its inventory either. But if a report from PCMag claiming that “every cargo flight from China to the U.S. on three major freight carriers for two weeks” is booked for iPhone 6 shipments, Apple should be in a pretty comfortable position.
