Apple: Thanks a million!: Big numbers on 21-country iPhone 3G launch

The iPhone 3G’s “opening weekend” — get used to the movie lingo in this context — saw “one million devices sold” in 21 countries, according to Apple Inc.’s CEO Steve Jobs.
If true, that’s more than three times the volume of last year’s iPhone debut at AT&T Mobility — a fact one analyst said was encouraging for the overall handset industry.
No word yet on how many of those presumably one million customers remain angry or frustrated by the activation problems that delayed their use of the device — a delay that had Apple Inc. and AT&T Mobility pointing fingers at each other, in an echo of last year’s activation problems.
One analyst questioned whether Apple indeed sold one million units at retail to actual consumers, or whether the company’s reported sales referred to units shipped, with some still in transit over the weekend.
Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster in an investor note Monday originally pegged iPhone 3G sales at 450,000, based on a variety of factors. Later, Munster conceded that Apple’s number might be accurate and that he may have under-estimated an accelerated sales rate after activation problems had been addressed.
Munster’s breakdown of global sales, based on his estimates: 400,000 units sold in the United States, 250,000 sold in the United Kingdom and about 18,000 units in each of the other 19 countries.
Jobs switched to baseball parlance to state that his company’s App Store saw 10 million downloads over the weekend, declaring the service “a grand slam.”
The launch was “overall a success despite some hiccups,” according to analyst Maynard Um at UBS. Um suggested that the iPhone’s popularity may lift at least one boat: 3G business for Qualcomm Inc. Though Qualcomm does not supply any components for the device, it is a major supplier of 3G baseband chips and IPR.
The results
In a survey of 328 iPhone buyers last Friday in the U.S. and the U.K., UBS found that Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry user base differs fundamentally from the iPhone’s base. Operators that do not offer the iPhone are pushing BlackBerrys, according to UBS. And a survey of 222 buyers waiting in line for the iPhone 3G in the U.K. revealed that less than 4% were replacing a BlackBerry. In the U.S., a survey of 106 buyers found less than 2% were replacing BlackBerrys; more than 30% were replacing handsets by Motorola Inc. or Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
“We come away from Friday’s iPhone 3G launch encouraged that the recent sluggishness in handset demand could get a boost in the second half of 2008,” wrote analyst Ittai Kidron at Oppenheimer. “We expect strong carrier promotional activity in support of or in competition with Apple to be a draw for consumers. And we look for competition to intensify in the coming months with new smartphone and handset releases, which should drive greater overall handset volumes.”
Kidron estimated that consumers purchased 500,000 to 800,000 units at retail over the weekend — in effect, echoing Munster’s question on Apples’ reported numbers — with the U.S. accounting for about one-third of sales. About 33% of the purchasers were upgrading from their old iPhone, while 14% were upgrading from Motorola handsets, 13% from Samsung handsets and 11% from handsets by LG Electronics Co. Ltd., Kidron estimated. The analyst found that 11% of iPhone 3G buyers were upgrading from a BlackBerry.
“Opening weekend,” apparently, will have multiple sequels as the iPhone 3G launches in France on July 17 and is “coming soon” to another four dozen other countries, according to Apple. Many operators in those countries have announced that their launches would come “later this year.”