Apple began taking orders for the iPhone 5 at midnight Pacific time on Friday (0700 GMT Saturday). Shipping dates for the smartphone slipped by a week within an hour of the start of preorders.

　　On Monday morning, Apple's U.S. store, at www.apple.com, showed preorders placed at that time would take two to three weeks to ship.

　　AT&T SETS SALES RECORD

　　Wall Street is also keeping a close eye on the supply of the smartphone.

　　"We still believe Apple is facing significant production constraints due to a move toward in-cell display technology, which pushes a significant amount of units into the December and March quarters," Reitzes said.

　　One of Apple's key suppliers for screens, Sharp Corp, is struggling with high costs and scrambling to raise funds to pay debt.

　　The latest iPhone comes as competition in the smartphone market has reached a fever-pitch with Apple up against phones that run on Google Inc's Android software. Android has become the most-used mobile operating system in the world, while Apple's key supplier and rival, Samsung Electronics, has taken the lead in smartphone sales.

　　But Apple appears to be making headway into the corporate market, a traditional stronghold of now-struggling Canadian company Research In Motion

　　Yahoo Inc has instituted a new corporate policy that allows employees to pick from a host of smartphones, including the iPhone 5 and Android-based phones such as Samsung's Galaxy S3. Yahoo, which previously gave out RIM's Blackberry phones, will no longer support them, according to Business Insider blog, which cited an internal memo from Yahoo Chief Executive Marissa Mayer.

　　Yahoo declined to comment.

　　AT&T, the No. 2 U.S. mobile service provider, said demand over the weekend had made the iPhone 5 the fastest-selling iPhone the company has ever offered.