I have been tracking Apple Apple’s iPhone 6 and 6 Plus lead-times since pre-orders were being taken similar to what I did for the iPhone 4S, 5, 5c and 5s. Their information along with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus is available via this link.  It would not surprise me it there was some tweaking of various iPhone 6 and 6 Plus lead-times by Apple depending on the model, capacity and carrier but unless its partners can ramp production meaningfully it could be a month or longer until we see any material changes to lead-times, especially for the 6 Plus.  Maybe Apple just wanted to have all its websites lead-times match but it is a bit interesting that the second wave countries 6 Plus’s lead-times were changed from 5-7 business days to 3-4 weeks the day after they were available but the 6’s stayed at 5-7 business days. Then sometime between Sunday and Wednesday (when I next checked) the 6’s had moved out to 7-10 business days to match the first wave countries.  It is a minor change but to degree indicates that the 6 remains in strong demand worldwide. What we don’t know is this due to people wanting the 6 or defaulting to it when the 6 Plus is not available.  While iPhone 6 and 6 Plus production is ramping it will be interesting to see what happens to their lead-times once China starts taking pre-orders in a week and launches in two weeks.  Previous iPhone 5 and 5s lead-times  The iPhone 5 went to 3-4 weeks lead-times a few days after it could be pre-ordered and stayed there until early November when it dropped to 2-3 weeks. The iPhone 5s’ lead-times settled at October on the first day it was available and changed to 2-3 weeks on October 11 on Apple’s websites, three weeks after it started shipping.  iPhone 6 lead-times on Apple’s Wave 2 countries have gotten longer  When Apple started selling the iPhone 6 in the second wave of 20 countries last Friday, September 26, I started tracking 7 of Apple’s country websites (Austria, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Spain, Taiwan and Turkey) to monitor iPhone lead-times. For the first two days the iPhone 6 lead-time in 5 of them was 5-7 business days, which was better than the 7-10 business days in the first wave of countries (at least the US, UK and Australia which I am monitoring). The other two (Hong Kong and Singapore) have been and are still currently showing Currently Unavailable.  When I went to check lead-times on Wednesday evening (the previous time was Saturday morning) the 5 countries that had been at 5-7 business day lead-times (Austria, Denmark, Finland, Italy and Spain) had seen the iPhone 6 move out to 7-10 business days to match the first wave countries.  The lead-times for Apple’s iPhone 6 on Verizon, AT&T AT&T, Sprint and three Vodafone Vodafone country websites have gotten a bit longer than they were last Saturday. Overall 9 different models have shorter lead-times since Saturday and 13 models have gotten longer. Nothing dramatic either way but overall the 6 is seeing strong demand. Across the six websites there are 6 iPhone 6 models out of 54 showing In Stock for immediate shipment.  iPhone 6 Plus lead-times on Apple’s sites have stabilized  iPhone 6 Plus lead-times on Apple’s websites seem to have settled in at 3-4 weeks for both the first and second wave of countries. This does help to cut down on any arbitrage buying and selling of iPhones but this was starting to see premiums drop especially with Apple announcing that pre-orders in China would start on Friday, October 10, and sales a week later.  The lead-times for the iPhone 6 Plus at the six partner websites I have been tracking have also overall gotten a bit worse from Saturday. Overall 7 models have shorter lead-times while 10 have gotten longer. Again nothing dramatic in the changes but the 6 Plus has longer lead-times than the 6 and on Vodafone’s Australia site all the 6 Pluses are showing Out Of Stock. Across the six websites there are 3 iPhone 6 Plus models out of 54 showing In Stock for immediate shipment.  There is only one time zone in China  Since we are just over a week away from Apple and its Chinese partners taking pre-orders for the iPhone 6 I don’t believe there will be much if any improvement in lead-times due to the anticipated very strong demand in China. Apple will be taking pre-orders on Friday, October 10, at midnight (assuming they introduce it in a similar way to what they did with the first wave) which if they do will be noon on Thursday in New York. Sales start on Friday, October 17, so if they open the doors at 8 am Friday that would be 8 pm on Thursday in New York.  One small tidbit I found is that a country almost the same length as the US only has one time zone.  Follow me on Twitter @sandhillinsight. You can find my other Forbes posts here.
It is still early in the iPhone 6 lifecycle but its lead-times got a bit longer in the past few days.