Huge queues formed in front of mobile phone stores in major Turkish cities Friday, ahead of the launch of the much-awaited iPhone X in Turkey, Apple's most expensive smartphone to date.

Fans started queueing several hours before midnight for when stores in Istanbul, Ankara and Konya would start selling the new iPhone.

Turkish Apple fans paid between 6.100 liras ($1550) to 1700 Turkish liras ($1780) for the two different models of the phone, with 64 GB and 256 GB memory capacity respectively.

The iPhone X starts at $999 for the 64 GB version and the 256 GB model costs $1,149 in the U.S.

"I am really happy, I pre-ordered beforehand so I only had to wait for 20 minutes," one of the customers said in Istanbul.

The iPhone X is a brand new design that has garnered strong demand worldwide while the iPhone 8 is an update on last year's iPhone 7, which itself was similar to the iPhone 6 released in 2014.

Apple said it sold 46.7 million iPhones in the fourth quarter that ended on Sept. 30, above analysts' estimates of 46.4 million, according to financial data and analytics firm FactSet. Mac and iPpad sales too were above the estimates of most analysts.