At a media event on the 11th of September, Apple announced that it was ready to take pe-orders for the iPhone 5C by September 13; although, it failed to announce what time the company would begin taking the orders. Verizon and Sprint, however believe that the pre-orders have a chance of going live at midnight, Pacific Time, Friday morning. The launch seems possible to take place at the one given by the U.S Carrier partners since a similar pattern, related to the launch and pre-order has been noticed for other iPhone products.
Apple will not be offering pre orders for the iPhone 5s after its September 20th launch; nor would its carrier partners. On the other hand, Verizon allows potential customers to pre-order the phone by signing up for email updates, on the iPhone 5S/5C feature page. The page also states that pre-orders will go live at 3:01 AM Eastern Time (12:01 AM Pacific Time). Sprint has also announced a pre-order time for the 5C (2:00 AM Central Time) on its website.
Pre-orders will also go live for customers outside the United States that is, in : Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore and the UK. Apple’s pre-order timings and that of other local service providers are likely to be the same for other countries too, hence a time zone conversion from Pacific time is advisable.