China Unicom sees 100,000 iPhone 5 pre-orders in first day

China Unicom, the second largest carrier in the country, and 22nd largest in the world by subscriber base, opened up iPhone 5 pre-sale reservations on Monday ahead of its December 14 launch. And during the first 24 hours, the provider received over 100,000 pre-orders for the handset…

The information comes from a Sina Tech report (via The Next Web), which claims that as of 4pm local time yesterday, China Unicom had recorded more than 100,000 iPhone 5 pre-orders. That’s just for one carrier, and the report says that’s for online reservations only, in-store not included.

There’s no money involved in the pre-order process. Instead, China Unicom simply requests some personal information like the buyer’s name, ID card number, telephone number, and then has them select their carrier plan and choose their iPhone model — black or white, and 16GB 32GB, or 64GB.

The pre-order comes shortly after reports that the handset had passed its last regulatory hurdle in China, and Apple’s official launch announcement. Of course, China Telecom began taking reservations more than a week ago, but there’s been no word yet on how successful its been for them.

Outside of China, the iPhone 5 will also be hitting 50 other countries this month including Brazil, Korea and Taiwan. Apple’s been aggressive with its international rollout of the handset, and now that supplies are leveling out, it should have no problem hitting its 100-countries-by-year’s-end goal.