iPhone 5 shipping times improve to one week

Demand for Apple’s latest handset continues to outstrip supply, but availability has been improving lately. Throughout September, Apple’s online store consistently quoted a 3-4 week shipping estimate for the handset before improving to 2-3 weeks mid-November. And as the handset became easier to find in Apple’s brick-and-mortar stores, some international online Apple Stores today updated iPhone 5 shipping times to just one week.

This bodes well for Apple’s holiday sales because it indicates the company is catching up to iPhone 5 demand. Apple is expected to soon roll out the device to additional countries, per its promise to make the iPhone 5 available in about a hundred countries and through 240 carriers by year’s end…

As noted by MacRumors, the US online Apple Store at press time quoted 2-3 weeks for delivery but the New Zealand store and other channels now have improved availability with a one-week shipping estimate.

As these things take some time to propagate, we’re expecting shipping times for online iPhone 5 orders placed in the United States and other international markets to improve to one week later in the day.

How’s iPhone 5 availability in your country?