The iPhone 4S went on sale at 8am today, and Apple’s flagship store at Covent Garden in London and its Regent Street branch were the scene of the usual phone-inspired frenzy.

Queuing and Apple launches go hand in hand, but this time we have some stats to add to what otherwise would be a rather thin report, filled with pictures of people waiting patiently in line and, well, not much else.

This year, according to some stats from Protectyourbubble.com, a whopping 778 people queued for an iPhone 4S in Regent Street – and we clocked in around a 1,000 at the Covent Garden store.

53 per cent of those queuing for the iPhone 4S in Regent Street were doing so because they forgot to pre-order, while 11 per cent claimed they were die-hard fans.

Interestingly 56 per cent have considered switching to Android but the most popular phone in the queue, other than an Apple one, was a BlackBerry.

Out of those lining up, 57 per cent were disappointed that they weren’t going to get their hands on an iPhone 5.

The number crunching also extended to beards and women – with 11 per cent of those in the crowd female and 33 per cent had beards. Er, that’s 33 per cent of those in the crowd, not 33 per cent of the 11 per cent of woman who were in the queue. Obviously.

Finally, the most popular model that was up for grabs was the 16GB version of the iPhone 4S.

This is a stat that’s echoed by O2, which told TechRadar that it was also finding that white was outselling black.

O2 also noted that it had sold more iPhone 4S units in the first hour of launch today than it sold iPhone 4 devices in the same period last year.

There we go – another year, another queue. And what have we learned from the people in line this time around?

Some of them have beards, they are a forgetful bunch that don’t pre-order, hardly any of them are ladies and quite a few were trading in a BlackBerry for a shiny new iPhone 4S.

If you are still undecided about buying a new iPhone 4, then check out out our Hands on: iPhone 4S review.

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