Money Matters, Simplified.
Sales of Apple iPhone 3G S surpass 1 million
by Neka Sehgal - June 23, 2009 - comments
Apple sold 1 million iphone 3GS handsets, twice the figure projected by most analysts, in the first three days of its launch
San Francisco, June 22: Despite a sagging economy and a challenging market, Apple (NASDAQ: APPL) said Monday that it sold a staggering one million iPhone 3GS handsets in the first three days of its launch.
The iPhone 3G S went on sale Friday in the U.S. and seven other countries. The brisk early sales are about twice the projections of most analysts, who expected Apple to sell 500,000-700,000 units.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in a statement, “Customers are voting and the iPhone is winning. With over 50,000 applications available from Apple’s revolutionary App Store, iPhone momentum is stronger than ever.”
Analysts reflect on sales figures
The 1 million figure is “astounding”, said Yair Reiner, an analyst at Oppenheimer & Co., considering that the previous year's similar sales were spread among 21 countries, as opposed to eight countries this year.
The 3G had a similar debut last summer, said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst with market research firm Interpret, but "it's more impressive this time around because it's a third-generation product, and we're in the midst of a nasty economic recession."
Although everyone is talking about cutting costs, the mobile phone market is growing because of an enhanced consumer interest in social networking.
Ramon Llamas, a senior research analyst at IDC, said, "We're living at a time when people want to communicate a lot of information with each other.”
Apple had announced the 3GS iPhone at its Worldwide Developers Conference earlier in the month.
iPhone 3GS features
Apple says that “the ‘S’ stands for speed” and that the combination of the new hardware and fine-tuned operating system makes the iPhone 3G S about twice as fast as the 3G.
In addition to more memory, the iPhone has a longer battery life, improved software and features, including a better built-in 3-megapixel camera that can also do video recording and voice control.
Just five days into its release, Apple said six million customers have downloaded the new iPhone 3.0 software.
The only problem faced in the launch was that thousands of iPhone 3G S users were unable to activate their new phones immediately because of immense traffic on Apple's servers. Some people had to wait nearly 48 hours to get their units started.
Apple is e-mailing customers who underwent excessive wait, and offering them a $30 credit for the iTunes store.