AT&T Sets Sales Record For iPhone 5

AT&T says it set a sales record with iPhone 5 over the weekend of Sept. 15 and 16, 2012, making it the fastest-selling iPhone the company has ever offered. Customers ordered more iPhones from AT&T than any previous model both on its first day of pre-orders and over the weekend.

That probably won't surprise very many people. But at least some observers have argued that the iPhone 5 would not break sales records in the U.S. market, however well it might do elsewhere. 

"The iPhone 5," NPD Group analyst Stephen Baker has argued, will launch into a U.S. smart phone market that is increasingly mature. A recent analysis by NPD estimated total growth in the U.S. market was just nine percent in the second quarter, and all that growth was the result of the increased prevalence of prepaid devices in the market.

Others might note that the NPD Group measures only U.S. retail sales, while Apple sells all over the world. In fact, of the 37 million iPhones it sold in the December quarter last year -- the first that included the iPhone 4S -- nearly half (17 million) were purchased outside the United States. 

In other words, NPD might be right about U.S. sales, but wrong globally.