Apple shares touch $700 mark over iPhone 5 pre-orders

Apple shares have gained nearly 22 per cent in the past 3-1/2 months in the build-up to the launch of the iPhone 5.
LONDON: Apple's shares have risen to a record high as the tech giant's new iPhone 5 has smashed pre-delivery sales records.

Apple announced that online orders for the phone exceeded two million on Friday, the first day consumers could makes purchases over the web.

The performance more than doubled the one million mark for first-day online sales set by the iPhone 4S last year.

According to the Telegraph, shares in Apple touched a fresh high of 700 dollars, closing up 1.2 percent at 699.78 dollars.

They have soared 70pc this year, punishing those who believed that a company that was close to bankruptcy in the late 1990s could not sustain its growth, the paper said.

According to the report, with a value of 650 billion dollars Apple is now comfortably the world's biggest company.

The iPhone 5 will be available in shops in the UK, the US and seven other countries from Friday, with a further 22 countries getting the device a week later.

Apple has warned that the strength of demand meant that not everyone who made an online order would get their phone delivered this month as promised, the report said.