iPhone 3G S: Blockbuster Weekend

The iPhone 3G S, the Jurassic Park of smartphones, had a monster weekend racking up more than a million units sold. Downloads of the new iPhone 3.0 OS, launched last week, has already hit 6 million. All this in what’s supposed to be one of the worst economies in recent history. 

“Customers are voting and the iPhone is winning,” Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in a rare statement.

One reader told me it was an amazing experience that he’ll never forget. Apple sales folks gave him an umbrella as he waited in line under rain clouds, he says, and then congratulated him after his purchase. “Here I am, a very successful business man of 54 years [of age], and it took me one day to be wowed like never before,” says Robert Galluccio.

Here’s a little context to put these numbers into perspective: The much-ballyhooed Palm Pre posted only 100,000 units sold. And iPhone 3G S sales blew away Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster’s 500,000 prediction. 

There’s already noise in the blogosphere about the after-effects of the iPhone 3G S—that is, how much will it hurt sales in, say, personal navigation devices? Or third-party recorder apps? The new iPhone 3G S comes with these capabilities.

One thing is for sure: Mobile Internet activity will surely be on the rise. iPhone users are among the most active on the Net. Even YouTube is looking toward a spike in traffic. “This was like a World Series pre-game,” Galluccio says.

How is the iPhone impacting your company? Send me an email at tkaneshige@cio.com. Or follow me on Twitter @kaneshige. Follow everything from CIO.com on Twitter @CIOonline.