Over 4m iPhone pre-orders in 24 hours

The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus will start to be delivered to customers from Friday, but may not arrive until October.

Apple has revealed there were over 4m pre-orders of its new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in 24 hours, exceeding its initial pre-order supply.

The company said the phones will be delivered to customers starting on Friday and throughout September, although many will not be delivered until October.

Phones will be available on a walk-in basis from Friday at Apple shops. Both phones will also be available from & authorised Apple resellers.

Apple’s website showed last week that the 5.5-in Plus models displayed a wait time of up to a month.

Janney Capital Markets analysts said the large number of pre-orders was due to “pent-up demand” for bigger screens. The phones come with Apple Pay — a contactless payment service.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is to buy the maker of the popular game Minecraft for €2.5bn.

The technology giant will buy Stockholm-based games firm Mojang.

Minecraft, which lets users build in and explore a virtual world, has been downloaded 100m times on PC alone since its launch in 2009.

It is the most popular online game on Xbox, and the top paid app for Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android operating system in the US.

The deal is expected to close in late 2014.

Microsoft expects the acquisition to be break- even in fiscal 2015.

Microsoft is primarily known for business software such as Word and Outlook, but this acquisition will help it to expand its gaming division which also includes game franchises such as the shooter game Halo and the racing game Forza.