Just over a year ago, when Steve Jobs announced that Apple estimated 10 million iPhone sales, a lot of people were skeptical. After all, Apple was not even in the phone business. The 10 million figure As great a success as the original iPhone was, the iPhone 3G looks to be even more successful. In just 3 days, Apple has sold 1 million iPhone 3G units. The original iPhone took 74 days to reach the same goal.

Granted, there were several factors which pretty much guaranteed strong numbers during the first few days:
- The iPhone is now available (legally) in 21 more countries. With more countries to come, we can expect the sales momentum to continue.
- There the pent-up demand for iPhones in general, since there were no units on sale for the past 3-4 weeks as supplies for the 2G iPhone dried up.
- A large number of early adopters would upgrade from 2G to 3G.
- Another large group who did not purchase the iPhone earlier since there was no 3G.

Remember, these numbers were reached despite all the horror stories of long lines, delayed activations and bricked iPhones over the weeked. No doubt the numbers are small compared to all mobile phones (Nokia sells over 1 million units a day), but the numbers sure are impressive.

Here’s another impressive statistic : a total of 10 million iPhone applications were downloaded through the App Store. It certainly helps that most of the applications are free (25%) or very affordable (90% are less than US$10). This is a saner model of application pricing. Apple started the trend much earlier by offering games for the iPod at US$5 compared to 3 or 4 times that on other mobile platforms like Palm OS or Windows Mobile.

We have gone off on a good start; this certainly sets the mood (and puts more pressure) for all other players (Google, Microsoft, Palm, Symbian) to deliver their own services soon.

Filed under: iPhone • Mobile Software

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