Apple's latest smartphone, the iPhone 5, went on sale in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, the U.K., and the U.S. on Friday, causing long queues to form at Apples stores in these countries.

As with previous models, some customers waited overnight to buy a phone and cheered loudly when they finally got one.

Sales in another 22 countries start this Friday.

Apple employees hang an iPhone 5 sign at one of the company's retail locations shortly before sales began in San Francisco, California on Friday. /Reuters-Newsis

The new iPhone has come in for some criticism for its lack of innovation and anemic map service but is selling at a faster rate than the iPhone 4S last year.

According to U.S. investment bank Piper Jaffray, sales of the iPhone 5 are expected to total 10 million units by the end of this month. The iPhone 4S only racked up sales of four million units in its first week of release.

Apple said online pre-orders for the iPhone 5 on Sept. 14 indicated more than 2 million units were sold in the first 24 hours, about double the amount of pre-orders for the iPhone 4S.