Brett Molina

USA TODAY

For many future iPhone owners, bigger is better.

Demand for Apple's iPhone 6 Plus, which boasts a much larger, 5.5-inch touch-screen display, has surged since pre-orders opened up early Friday morning. Customers hoping to snag the larger smartphone now must wait several weeks before shipments of online orders begin to arrive.

According to the Apple Store website, all pre-orders for the iPhone 6 Plus won't ship until early October.

"Response to iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus has been incredible, with a record number of pre-orders overnight," said Apple in a statement Friday.

The wait is longer when ordering online through a wireless carrier. A message on AT&T's website says consumers who pre-order the iPhone 6 Plus online may have to wait as long as Nov. 27 for their device to arrive. Sprint says delays on iPhone 6 Plus shipments could stretch as far as six weeks for some models. On Verizon, online orders of the device aren't expected to ship until mid- to late-October.

However, as of Friday morning, the iPhone 6, with its smaller, 4.7-inch display, is still available in most models for shipping by launch day on Sept. 19.

On Friday night, AT&T said pre-orders had set a record. "This is our biggest iPhone, pre-order launch day ever," AT&T Mobility CEO Glenn Lurie said.

On Twitter earlier Friday, T-Mobile CEO John Legere said demand for the iPhone was "huge."

S&P Capital IQ analyst Scott Kessler says consumers may be viewing the iPhone 6 more as a continuation of Apple's smartphone line, while the Plus carries extra novelty. "Some might view the iPhone 6 Plus as different, and therefore special," he said.

The debut of iPhone 6 pre-orders didn't go smoothly. Many sites, including Apple and those of carriers AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile, experienced delays at midnight PT (3 a.m. ET), when pre-orders were opened to the public.

Naturally, that led to several users expressing their frustrations through Twitter:

On Tuesday, Apple unveiled the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus during an event in Cupertino, Calif. Along with larger screens, the new iPhones also feature Apple Pay, the company's new mobile payments system, which allows users to process purchases with their phone and contactless payment hubs.

Gartner analyst Van Baker says pre-order demand appears in line with earlier phones such as the iPhone 5 and 5s, and he expects the wait time for the Plus to dwindle soon. "While initial product availability is now exhausted, there will be resupply fairly quickly, so the backlog will clear relatively quickly, most likely in a few weeks."

Follow Brett Molina on Twitter: @brettmolina23.

Contributing: Eli Blumenthal