Apple's iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are scheduled to go on sale on October 17 in China, but already China Unicom, China Mobile and China Telecom are receiving pre-orders for the two devices, alongside other retailers.

In under six hours, Apple managed to gain two million pre-orders in China, according to JD.com, a Chinese website tracking iPhone pre-orders in real-time. This comes alongside figures from Tencent Holdings, which both match up.

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The website claims 1.4 million iPhone 6 and 1.5 million iPhone 6 Plus units were pre-ordered as of Friday. Tencent is claiming over four million pre-orders may have been made already, a hefty number considering we're still two weeks away from launch.

The numbers are interesting, because in the West, it was reported the iPhone 6 Plus is doing far worse than its smaller sibling. After the recent #BendGate controversy, iPhone 6 Plus sales have been dwindling, with web share only at 0.3 percent, compared to the iPhone 6 at 2.7 percent in two weeks.

Phablets are more popular in Southeast Asia, especially in China and South Korea. This might be the reason the iPhone 6 Plus is so popular in China since people see the larger size as a more premium option. According to Tencent, the 64 GB option is the most popular.

At the current pace, Apple is set to hit 10 million pre-orders before the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus goes live in the country. This might give Apple over 80 million iPhone 6 and 6 Plus sales worldwide by January, which would be a new record in the mobile industry.

This is worrisome for Chinese manufacturers ZTE, Huawei and Xiaomi that rely on the Chinese market for most of their mobile sales.

In the West, Xiaomi has almost no presence while ZTE and Huawei only sell low-end smartphones. The Chinese trio need to keep the Chinese audience on their side and away from Apple's products.

TagsiPhone 6 Plus, China Mobile, china telecom, Tencent Holdings, JD.com