Apple Sells One Million iPhones in Three Days

Apple (AAPL) 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.

Jason O’Grady has all the scorekeeping on the rollout problems, AT&T (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:

Comments

[doriso3:]

apple rarely tells the truth. they are part of the hype.of all of the carriers ,ATT is the poorest in quality and verizon is the best.apple has wonderful features if you want to walk around all day using the web and I tunes.this ,too will come to an end. when the parents of the young tech virtuosos get their monthly charges for all of the extras and roaming charges which is part of the ATT program,watch out. the big uses for most people on the cell phones are text messaging and phone use and e-mail. The I phone doese not pass muster in these qualities.

2008 Jul 14 10:27 AM

[Toni:]

Going down again, how it's that possibile ?

LOL

2008 Jul 14 10:34 AM

[DickM:]

Sounds like the first poster (above) is at least three quarts short of a gallon upstairs.

2008 Jul 14 10:43 AM

[Research123:]

Thank goodness we are in a recession, else Apple might have sold 10 million phones! Clearly Main Street is doing fine while Wall Street does its best to turn a financial disllocation into a full fledged depression!!

2008 Jul 14 10:52 AM

[User 226036:]

Research 123. I agree about your take on mainstreet. I think people doing fine is just not newsworthy enough. Yes, there are problems, but when 1 million IPhones sell in 3 days, the world isn't over.

2008 Jul 14 11:15 AM

[Toni:]

Are we at 200 yet ? 190 ? 180 ?

2008 Jul 14 11:18 AM

[best.deception:]

Man, Toni S, do you post any real facts on any articles on Seeking Alpha?? You go from post to post and bash. I thought that Bernstein would have policies that would ban analysts from posting bashing comments. Bernstein should have fired you a while back since you have yet to hit any "estimate" that you provide on AAPL. So far your batting average is still a goose egg.

2008 Jul 14 11:24 AM

[wily:]

Hear, hear, Best.

Toni Sacc, please stop posting.

2008 Jul 14 12:02 PM

[reagan:]

Toni above posts on a few blogs & spews the usual, "Are we at 200 yet? 190? 180?....the guy is pathetic. It will be interesting when the stock does hit 200(and it will) and hear his immature response to it doing so. Go away,Toni,you petulent little child.

2008 Jul 14 12:23 PM

[jswede:]

doriso3: said: "apple has wonderful features if you want to walk around all day using the web and I tunes.this ,too will come to an end. when the parents of the young tech virtuosos get their monthly charges for all of the extras and roaming charges which is part of the ATT program,watch out. the big uses for most people on the cell phones are text messaging and phone use and e-mail. The I phone doese not pass muster in these qualities."

....doriso, you have an incredible skill at looking into the future.... I mean, the past.

2008 Jul 14 12:32 PM

[Iowa:]

doriso3, I agree with you that Verizon has generally superior coverage in most places. I do know people who have left Verizon because of poor coverage where they live. I have been long Verizon before, and hope to be again, largely because of its FIOS expansion and good dividends. And the iPhone is not a good platform for people who live to send text messages.
Having said all that, most if not all AT&T plans have been nationwide for the last two years. (Before that, your comment about high roaming charges was correct.) And, according to Google, iPhone users do massively more online searches than owners of any other cell type. Why? Because it's so easy and fast on an iPhone. But I also think the iPhone benefits Verizon mobile customers. Verizon used to be know for having a poor selection of phones. Since the iPhone, Verizon is pushing to offer much more up-to-date models, and that benefits its customers.

2008 Jul 14 12:36 PM

[Toni:]

"It will be interesting when the stock does hit 200(and it will) "

I agree. But when ? Not tomorrow.

In the meantime you all talk about greatness and price targets in the range of 200-300.

If you are annoyed maybe it's because I'm asking this for some time.

I would like too the stock go to 200+, but it won't happen.

Not for now.

So: Are we at 200 yet ?

2008 Jul 14 12:36 PM

[satellite r...:]

You bullish Apple investors are hysterical! The U.S. financial system is in major upheaval, and you're buying a consumer-driven tech stock? You can't be serious.

2008 Jul 14 03:47 PM

[Jon T:]

Yes we are serious. We are in recession and people are prepared to wait for hours to buy this device? Mac sales are three times the market and even iPod sales hold up despite the iPhone success.

It would seem that consumers will sacrifice many other things before giving up on Apple's stunning products. Open your eyes Satellite Radio...

2008 Jul 15 08:49 AM

[satellite r...:]

Jon, you can't be serious. The average person standing in line is borrowing every dime of that iPhone's price tag, increasing his/her debt load all the more. This is the same Average Joe that hasn't saved a dime of earnings since 2004, according to government data, and is upside down in home equity and/or mortgage debt, not to mention auto loans and $9000+ in credit card obligations. Do you not understand that the mounds of debt that the average American has amassed, due to a lack of control of their spending, has placed the American financial system on the verge of utter collapse? This economy's revenue has been driven by cheap money for the last 12+ years. The red lights are flashing, with the collapse in financial equities, that the situation has reversed. Rather than borrowing & increasing leverage, we are now in a de-leveraging process. With America's ability to borrow any more having now reached a fixed ceiling, the simple truth is that discretionary spending is on the decline and will be for many years. Apple's $170 stock price can't hold, you're a nincampoop if you think otherwise.

2008 Jul 15 11:10 AM

[mollytjm:]

no matter how bad an economy gets, there are always plenty of people who still have money to spend. and let's not forget that some businesses are now offering to co-pay or pay for iPhones for some employees... and some are realizing that all Mac products require a lot less IT intervention than all PC products... so, bottom line for some places is that they're switching to Macs or at least supporting them.
the iPhone is one year old and all this has happened. bodes well for the future.

2008 Jul 15 02:00 PM