Apple Inc. suspended its sale of its new iPhone 4S in China Friday after irate shoppers pelted Apple's flagship Beijing store with eggs and fought with security guards in a desperate bid to get their hands on the new device.

"The demand for iPhone 4S has been incredible, and our stores in China have already sold out," company spokeswoman Carolyn Wu told AFP.

"Unfortunately we were unable to open our store at Sanlitun (in Beijing) due to the large crowd, and to ensure the safety of our customers and employees, iPhones will not be available in our retail stores in Beijing and Shanghai for the time being."

Apple said after the botched launch in Beijing's Sanlitun district that the temporary ban will only affect its local stores in Beijing and Shanghai, and the phones would still be available online and through its partner China Unicom or at authorized Apple retailers in China.

The scuffle broke out after die-hard fans that had been waiting overnight in freezing temperatures reacted when store officials failed to open the doors on time. Apple had advertised that the store would open at 7 a.m. At 7.15 a.m. people began chanting for officials to open the door. Eggs started to fly around 7.40 a.m. and an hour later men with megaphones were declaring that the phone wouldn't go on sale today without an explanation. Beijing police soon began forcing people away from the store. By 11 a.m. the store still hadn't opened and police had cordoned off the area. The police detained at least two people outside the Beijing store after people started shoving security guards.

The iPhone 4S launched more peacefully in other parts of the city. At the Apple store in Xidan, the company handed out 1,000 tickets to customers to limit their purchases to a maximum of two iPhone 4S devices each. In Shanghai, the store in Pudong ran out of phones immediately after opening an hour early to accommodate the crowd.

China has become a lucrative market for Apple. The Cupertino-based company has opened six stores in greater China and Apple sales have surged five-fold last year to $12.47 billion.