Piper Jaffray: 500,000 iPhones sold over the weekend

Apple sold around half a million iPhones the first weekend the device went on sale, one analyst firm has estimated.

Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster released a report Sunday night estimating that Apple sold about 500,000 units from 6 p.m. Friday through the close of business Sunday. Going into the weekend Munster thought Apple would sell 200,000 on Friday and Saturday.

Despite low supply at AT&T stores and activation issues, it appears that the iPhone era at Apple got off to a good start. Piper Jaffray said Apple had iPhones available in each one of its stores on Saturday, and in 84 percent of its stores Sunday.

Ninety-five percent of iPhone buyers in San Francisco, New York and Minneapolis (home to Piper Jaffray's offices) purchased the 8GB model, according to a survey conducted by the firm. About half were new customers for AT&T, at least among the 253 people surveyed for the report.

[jerrylippman_ny]

wow

The number is certainly impressive. I am not an apple fan. I am using a Windows based smart phone, which works ok. I might consider buying this iPhone, but wondering if it supports DriveHQ SMTP/POP3 email and FTP hosting services. The DriveHQ service is very important to me as I travel a lot and need to access emails and files remotely. I remember Apple has a very bad record of not working with third-party software and services, which is why I favor Microsoft over Apple. Anybody tried DriveHQ service with iPhone? or any other email/ftp service?

[kool_skatkat]

DriveHQ iPhone support

I don't know when DriveHQ will release support for the iPhone. The first release and expecting it to have everything.... mmmm...

[dotmike]

How does DriveHQ SMTP/POP3 differ from regular SMTP/POP3?

As far as I know, iPhone implements the stock standard POP3
and IMAP protocols, with limited support for Exchange servers (a
company's IT people have to enable/disable something to
support it).

But I think you have it backward:: it's often that 3rd parties don't
support Apple because of its insignificant (to them) marketshare.
Too much work for just a small extra slice of the pie.

Microsoft, having the marketshare, sort of forces everyone to
support that OS or go out of business. (Unfortunately, that also
means virus writers support Microsoft very well!)

*If* this iPhone thing is a hit, you're bound to see 3rd party
support. If it isn't, you won't. Chicken & egg.

[chabig83]

Sales rate comparison

Microsoft hoped to sell 1 million Zunes in the 10 month period
ending June 30th, while Apple just sold 500,000 high end iPods in
the 2 day period ending June 30th. Bye bye Zune.

[Vegaman_Dan]

Wouldn't you have to compare similar products?

Your comparison doesn't quite hold water. You're not comparing devices with the same features.

If you want to compare the Zune sales with the first generation iPod sales, then you have a comparison of similar devices.

Comparing the iPhone with the Zune doesn't quite work though. Different products, different feature sets.

[Llib Setag]

MS Steve Ballmer eating crow over iPhone comments...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5oGaZIKYvo