July 14th, 2008
Apple moves 1 million iPhones in 3 days; 39 percent of buyers own PCs
Apple said that it has sold 1 million iPhones over Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Given the activation hurdles, Apple’s tally (statement) is stunning and well ahead of what Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster–one of the more bullish Apple followers out there–predicted. Munster estimated that Apple would hit the 1 million mark later this month. Apple also said 10 million applications were downloaded from its App Store (statement).
Jason O’Grady has all the scorekeeping on the rollout problems, AT&T coverage and other items. All blog posts and galleries on the iPhone are also available.
For comparison’s sake the first iPhone took 74 days to sell 1 million iPhones. The big reason for the jump is that this iPhone rollout is global with the
exception of France, which will see iPhones July 17. Munster estimated that the Apple sold 425,000 iPhone 3G devices over Friday, Saturday and Sunday. He reckoned that if Apple sold 41,000 a day that Apple would hit 1 million iPhones by July 28.
Also see: Cracking Open the Apple iPhone 3G (right)
While the sales are impressive Munster’s survey of buyers may be more notable. More iPhone buyers are PC owners.
The big item: 39 percent of iPhone buyers this time around use the PC primarily. With the first generation iPhone 25 percent of respondents owned a PC.
Why is that important? Apple is gaining a bigger footprint among PC owners, which most likely have iPods. These iPhone toting PC owners also may show how Apple’s Trojan Horse strategy to get more enterprise share may actually work. After all, corporate IT is still a Windows world.
Here are the results of Munster’s survey:
Update: In a followup research note, Munster added that Apple’s biggest challenge will be production. He also noted that the 1 million unit mark indicates that Apple recovered well from its Friday problems and iPhone activations ramped on Saturday and Sunday. Munster also estimated that 600,000 iPhones were sold abroad with the remainder in the U.S.
Next up is the restocking. Munster writes:
iPhone availability at Apple stores has decreased over the last 4 days: 100% day 1, 92% day 2, 70% day 3, and 49% day 4. Apple has continued to ensure that its flagship stores (i.e. San Francisco and 5th Avenue) remain well stocked.
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and Editorial Director of ZDNet sister site TechRepublic. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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