To heavy fanfare, Apple iPhone X goes on sale worldwide

Nov. 3 (UPI) -- Apple's iPhone X launched on Friday worldwide as hundreds of customers waited in long queues to get their hands on the company's newest, hyped smartphone.

Customers camped out for days, or even weeks in some cases, before the launch and those who managed to pre-order the cellphone online will begin receiving their orders on Friday. Apple said pre-orders sold out in just 10 minutes last week.

Apple launched the iPhone X just six weeks after introducing the iPhone 8, sales of which have been somewhat tepid -- perhaps, experts said, because Apple customers were waiting on the more expensive, feature-rich X model.

"The iPhone X is doubly important to Apple, because it's positioned as the future of the smartphone," Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst at Moor Insights and Strategy, said. "Apple knows it must own that future, versus ceding it to somebody like Samsung."

The iPhone X -- marked as such to commemorate the device's 10th anniversary -- provides new features and new overall design. The screen is larger and the home button has been replaced with face-detection technology.

The new features come at a cost, though. It's Apple's most expensive smartphone yet -- at a cost of $1,000 in the United States and more than $1,500 in other locations, just for the base model. In Australia, for example, the larger 256GB capacity version costs nearly $1,900.

"It's the new iPhone. It's a new generation," said a buyer in Sydney, who just recently purchased an iPhone 8.

"I'm excited for this. The 8, not so much."

The iPhone comprises a large share of Apple's revenue. The value of company shares has surged in the past three months -- and the $900 billion tech giant is also closing in on a trillion-dollar valuation, unprecedented territory for any company.