Previously that phone was annouced and showed at iPhone event at Apple's Let's Talk on October 4 2001 at Cupertino California. Initially iPhone 4S was annouced for 7 countries including Japan, Germany, France, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and United States.
The iPhone 4S initially released over 100 mobile carriers which included AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and C Spire in United States and KDDI / Okinawa Cellular for Japan. Apple is in very tough competation in tablet war also with Samsung Galaxy Tablet and Amazon Kindle Fire, and also with Nokia and Microsoft Venture for Windows Phone / Tablet.