(Yicai) Sept. 25 -- Apple’s top-of-the-range iPhone 15 Pro Max smartphones sold out on the first weekend of the launch of the US tech giant’s latest mobile phone series in Shanghai, and there were just a handful of stores that still had iPhone 15 Pro phones available yesterday.

An iPhone Pro Max ordered online yesterday will not be delivered until November at the earliest, and further shipments for an iPhone 15 Pro will not start until Oct. 25, according to Yicai research.

Only the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus could be delivered instantly if bought online yesterday, according to the Apple Store.

The iPhone 15 Pro Max will become the main driving force for Apple's growth in the fourth quarter, Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst at TF International Securities, said in a report released on Sept. 23.

Sales of the iPhone 15 Pro Max should reach 35 million units this year, far exceeding the 28 million iPhone 14 Pro Maxes shipped last year, Kuo said. But iPhone 14 sales were affected by the closure of Foxconn's Zhengzhou factory last year due to an outbreak of Covid-19.

There are likely to be 80 million orders for the iPhone 15 series in the second half, outstripping the 76 million phones in the iPhone 14 series that sold the same period last year, Kuo said.

Orders for the iPhone 15 series will be between 10 percent and 12 percent higher than those for the iPhone 14 series last year, and demand for the high-end models will be even higher, investment banking firm Wedbush said in a report published last week.

Editor: Kim Taylor