Virtual crowd line up for new iPhone

People walk past the virtual queue outside Spark on Queen Street in Auckland's CBD. Photo / Peter Meecham

Bendy-gate hasn't deterred them, nor has Apple pulling the latest update of iOS 8 because of software glitches.

But maybe that's because they're made of cardboard.

The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus will be available in New Zealand in a selected few Spark stores from 12.01am, and the rest from 7am.

And the queues for the smartphones are already packed, even though no one is actually there.

Spark has offered Apple fanbois the chance to join a queue of cardboard cut-outs with emoji faces.

The company invites people on its site: "Join our Emoji Queue and a life-size emoji character will reserve your spot in line outside one of our launch stores. Your emoji does the waiting. Then on the day, you tag in and take your spot."

Spark says it will notify customers when their emoji - the popular cartoon faces used to express emotions in text messages - are near the front of the queue, so they can hot-foot it down to the store to get their iPhone 6.

The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus went on sale last Friday in the US, UK, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico and Singapore.

Apple broke its sales record for an opening weekend of a new iPhone model, delivering 10 million in three days and boasting it could have sold more if it had them.

"Sales for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus exceeded our expectations for the launch weekend, and we couldn't be happier," Apple chief executive Tim Cook said on Monday.

"We could have sold many more iPhones with greater supply and we are working hard to fill orders as quickly as possible."

The opening weekend for the large-screen iPhones allowed Apple to break its record for launch weekend sales of nine million, which its set last year when it launched the iPhone 5S and 5C.

Queues in the US and Australia started 10 days before the phone was available.

Prices for the iPhone 6 start at $999 and $$1149 for the iPhone 6 Plus, which boasts a larger screen.