Apple claims 1 million iPhone 3G sales on opening weekend

Despite an embarassing spate of problems getting the phones to actually work right, Apple says the new iPhone 3G is a rousing success: 1 million phones were sold worldwide since Friday. The company notes that the original iPhone took 74 days to hit 1 million in sales.

How'd it pull that trick considering all the trouble getting phones into buyers' hands? Easy: By going global. While the original iPhone launched only in the U.S., the new model launched simultaneously in 21 countries, not to mention it was sold at a far lower initial price than last year's model and with considerably better performance.

Interestingly, Piper Jaffray (via Fortune magazine) is not so sure on the million iPhones figure. Piper put out a report yesterday estimating that actual sales would be about 425,000 units in the first weekend and that it would take over two weeks to hit the million mark. One explanation for the discrepancy is that Apple records sales when they are shipped to cellular carriers rather than when they reach customer hands, so while Apple may have a million phones in the channel, considerably fewer may actually be in use. It's impossible to say, but in the end Piper's numbers are probably simply too low.

Regardless of exactly how many phones are in user hands today, Piper's report (based on a survey of a few hundred iPhone buyers) has some interesting figures in it about the typical demographics of the iPhone 3G buyer. Notably: 34% of buyers opted for the lower-capacity 8GB model. 39% of buyers are PC users (the rest are Mac). Only 51% of users also own an iPod. And only 38% of buyers are upgrading from the old iPhone. Why do they want the iPhone 3G? 85% cited "new features" as the reason to upgrade rather than the price cut.