iPhone 3G S sold 1 million copies in 3 days. The story after the dust has settled.

News of the iPhone having sold one million units during its opening weekend has been widely distributed all over the web.  This is an interesting number for more than one reason.  First, selling one million units at $199 and $299 a piece during the current economic climate is remarkable.  How so?  Let’s compare this number to the sales of the original iPhone in the summer of 2007.  The first iPhone sold anywhere between 250,000 and 700,000 units during its opening weekend.  Since this range is quite “fat,” let’s settle in the middle and assume that the actual number was 500,000 units.  Note that this was at a time when multibillion dollar banks were not failing, the world’s largest automobile manufacturer hasn’t gone under, and the Dow Jones Industrial average was trading at two times the rate as it is today.

However, the original iPhone sold for a higher price, between $500 and $600 initially (later lowered to $300 and $400).  Perhaps a better head-on comparison of sales figures would be to pit sales of the 3G S to those of the 3G.  Interestingly enough, the iPhone 3G also sold one million units during its opening weekend of sales, which was about a year ago.  Let’s use the Dow Jones Industrial Average to gauge the overall state of the economy: in July of 2008 – the month of the iPhone 3G launch – the Dow was trading around 12,000 points.  On the day of the iPhone 3G S launch, the Dow was trading around 8,550.

This tells us is that the iPhone is picking up steam with consumers.  Whether it’s in their hearts or minds, consumers are buying the iPhone in droves.  What’s remarkable is that they’re doing so in a down market – matching sales numbers to the iPhone 3G, which was being sold when overall market conditions were less cloudy.  This can mean one of two things:

• consumers are flocking to smart phones in general, and the iPhone hits the sweet spot in terms of functionality, price, and convenience, or
• consumers are flocking to the iPhone in a down market

Whether it’s the former or the latter is not yet clear.  Judging by the sales results of the Palm Pre, which sold approximately 84,000 units in its first week of sales, I’d say it’s the latter: consumers are flocking to the iPhone.  The real question, however, is how can Palm capitalize on this?

Taking a closer look at the iPhone 3G S sales numbers, we find out that the 3G S was – during U.S. launch weekend – only available in 8 countries, while the 3G was – at launch – on sale in 21 countries.  The Pre, by comparison, was only available in the U.S. and Canada.  Perhaps it would be in Palm’s best interest to make its multi-tasking slider available worldwide?  It would, if not for the fact that Palm would need to shoehorn a GSM chip in there.