Despite the fact that market watchers felt that Apple's Friday launch of the iPhone 5 in China was a rather low-key affair, the company has recently reported that the first three-day sales of the handset in the Chinese market has set a new record.

According to the figures shared by Apple, within the first three days after the availability of iPhone 5 in China, the sales of the smartphone touched 2 million units; thereby marking an all-time high figure, so far as the company's iPhone sales in the country is concerned.

With reports from Shanghai Daily and other media sources revealing that people signed up to purchase the iPhone 5 on contract from the two Chinese carriers - China Unicom and China Telecom - selling the handset, Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement that the latest iPhone witnessed "the best first weekend sales ever in China" for any iPhone version.

It was quite evident that the demand for iPhone 5 was notably overwhelming in China, especially with China Unicom revealing that it had received 300,000 preorders for the handset. In comparison, the carrier's pre-order figures for the January-released iPhone 4S were 200,000.

Meanwhile, although Apple has touched record-high figures with the three-day post-launch sales of the iPhone 5 in China, the company still needs to significantly bump up its penetration rate in the country, by partnering with China Mobile - the country's biggest telecom carrier - which boasts over 700 million customers.