Apple expected to sell out new iPhones opening weekend

SAN FRANCISCO - Hoping to get your hands on the new iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus when it goes on sale next week? Better plan to shop early.

This week Apple introduced two new iPhones, a new mobile payment system and a digital smartwatch that will go on sale in 2015. The phones go on sale Sept. 19.

Analysts who cover Apple expect the new, larger phones to be sold out completely by the end of the opening weekend, as Apple scrambles to get more inventory into stores.

'This will be the biggest iPhone launch since the introduction of the first iPhone,' says Tim Bajarin, an analyst with Creative Strategies. 'Revolutionary.'

Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray, predicts Apple will sell 92 million new iPhones by the end of the year. There are currently 300 million iPhones in use worldwide.

Getting the new phones into consumer hands will be 'the biggest frenzy' ever for Apple, says Richard Doherty, an analyst with the Envisioneering Group. 'There are tens of millions waiting to get these new phones, and Apple has to get all of them off the assembly line, into consumers' hands. That's really hard to do.'

The new iPhones have gotten larger as Apple tries to shore up the gap with competitors Samsung, Sony and Microsoft, whose most popular phones have larger screens than Apple.

The iPhone 6 has a 4.7-inch LCD screen, up from 4 inches for the current iPhone 5s, while the larger iPhone 6 Plus has a 5.5-inch screen.

Of the two phones, Bajarin and other analysts expect the smaller iPhone 6 to be the larger seller over time, but the Plus to be harder to get on opening weekend.

Bigger phones are more popular overseas, says Bajarin, so Apple will have more Plus phones available there, making them harder to come by here.

Additionally, 'the novelty of the bigger phone will push people' to the Plus, says Frank Gillette, an analyst with Forrester Research.

Doherty calls the new Six Plus 'the new status symbol,' a phone that will be so hard to get he sees a rental business erupting for it. 'Go to a meeting and look really cool for $50 a day.'

The iPhone 6 starts at $199 with 16 GB of storage, or $299 with 64 GB, while the Plus starts at $299 with 16 GB and $399 with 64 GB. Pre-orders for the phones begin Friday, and the phones go on sale Sept. 19.

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