Pre-orders = smaller lines for new iPhones

LOS ANGELES — The new iPhones were hard to come by at retail stores this weekend, as consumers learned to opt for pre-orders instead of being the first on the block with new models.

Models of the larger iPhone 7 Plus were announced as sell-outs by Apple before the phones officially went on sale Friday, along with the new Jet Black edition of the smaller iPhone 7.

Lines were 23% shorter than last year, says Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, whose team monitored key stores in several cities. For instance, they counted 400 at the flagship Apple Store on New York's Fifth Avenue vs. 650 for the iPhone 6s launch in 2015 and 1,880 for the iPhone 6 in 2014.

Munster attributes the shorter lines to pre-orders, Apple's announcement that all units of the bigger iPhone 7 Plus and one edition of the smaller iPhone 7 were sold out, and that Apple had decided to sell the phone in more countries on launch day.

In past years, savvy entrepreneurs from other countries came to the U.S. to stand in line, buy as many units as they could and bring them home to jack up the price and sell them before Apple officially started the sales process.

Apple needs strong iPhone sales to offset poor response to the previous iPhone 6s model, which is the first iPhone since the original launched in 2007 to not out-sell the previous edition.

"Demand is strong" for the new iPhones, says Munster, who believes the new models will outsell last year's iPhone 6s, with 236 million units to the previous model's 215 million.

Both Munster and S&P analyst Angelo Zino predict opening weekend sales of more than 13 million units for the new iPhones.

Apple says it won't announce opening sales numbers, as it has in the past, because "initial sales will be governed by supply, not demand," the company said in a statement.

On Apple's website, it says delivery of the Jet Black edition of the iPhone 7 Plus is back-ordered through November, while most other editions will arrive in one to three weeks.

The iPhone 7 starts at $649, and $769 for the larger 5.5-inch iPhone 7 Plus.

Follow Paste BN's Jefferson Graham on Twitter, @jeffersongraham