Apple has recently revealed that the launch-weekend sales of its September 21-released iPhone 5 surpassed the `five million mark'; thereby overtaking the last year debut-weekend sales record set by the iPhone 4S.

While the iPhone 5 supply constraints apparently prevented Apple from posting the handset's debut-weekend sales to match up with analysts' estimates, ISI Group analyst Brian Marshall said that the figures reported by Apple included iPhone 5 sales from Apple stores, retail outlets, wireless carriers, and online orders which had been shipped to the customers.

Marshall - who had expected Apple to sell 6-8 million units of iPhone 5 in the first three days post release - also added that the `5 million units sold' figure for the handset did not include the yet-to-be-delivered early orders from Apple's online store.

With Marshall noting that "units in transit could be in the millions currently," Apple said that "while the majority of pre-orders have been shipped to customers, many are scheduled to be shipped in October."

Meanwhile, with the demand for the new Apple smartphone exceeding its initial supply, analyst Brian White - of Topeka Capital Markets - said that the launch-weekend figures posted by Apple for the iPhone 5 were "lower than what people had expected." White said that, going by his projections, the debut-weekend sales of iPhone 5 should have been in the range of between 6 million and 6.5 million units.