iPhone 5 breaks Apple and AT&T sales records in 'most successful iPhone launch ever' (update)

The iPhone 5 has set a new pre-order record for AT&T, the carrier announced today, selling faster than any previous iPhone. The phone became available to order on September 14th and quickly sold out of its initial stock bound for launch on the 21st, with Apple's site soon telling customers to expect a wait of around 2 weeks. AT&T isn't sharing specific numbers with us, but is already calling this the "most successful iPhone launch ever." Apple, for its part, has been "blown away by the customer response."
Despite widespread leaks rendering Apple's latest flagship announcement a somewhat less exciting event than it perhaps could have been, it doesn't seem that many purchasing decisions were affected. AT&T notes that the iPhone 5 has moved more overall units at this point than previous models, too, nullifying any suspicions that possible supply constraints may have accounted for the quick sell-through.
We've reproduced the carrier's statement below.

AT&T set a sales record with iPhone 5 over the weekend, making it the fastest-selling iPhone the company has ever offered. Customers ordered more iPhones from AT&T than any previous model both on its first day of pre-orders and over the weekend.

iPhone 5 is still available for pre-order at www.att.com/iphone and will be available in AT&T retail stores beginning at 8am local time on Friday, September 21.

Update: Apple has now released its own sales figures, saying that more than two million iPhone 5s were pre-ordered within the first 24 hours of availability. That's more than double the previous sales record held by the iPhone 4S, which sold about one million units in its first day of availability. Apple also noted that the "majority" of pre-orders will be delivered by September 21st, although some of those pre-orders are scheduled to be delivered in October.