iPhone 3G S launch likely to beat analyst expectations

Despite shorter lines than last year, two weeks of pre-orders and higher than expected sales volume may have Apple reaching or exceeding the 1 million unit sales mark it hit during the first weekend of the iPhone 3G’s launch. That would beat analyst expectations of about a half a million units.

The iPhone 3G S has officially seen first full day of sales, and early estimates suggests sales have been quite good. We’ll have to wait for an official tally to see if Apple was able to top the 1 million units it sold during the first weekend of the iPhone 3G launch last year, but statements from both AT&T and O2 suggest sales are already outpacing last year’s, and should put Apple out far ahead of analysts’ estimates.

Analysts do not expect Apple to move more iPhone 3G Ss than it did iPhone 3Gs during its launch weekend last year. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster predicted Apple would sell about 500,000 of the updated device this weekend. RBC analyst Mike Abramsky was slightly more bullish, suggesting the number would be between 500,000 and 700,000. That’s not an unreasonable expectation; the iPhone OS 3.0 update bring most—though not all—of the features of the iPhone 3G S to users of previous models, it is not launching in as many countries this weekend, and many iPhone 3G customers won’t be eligible for full subsidized pricing until later this year or sometime next year.

Read more: arstechnica.com