1.5 Million iPhone 4 Units Sold on Launch Date?

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It looks like the first unofficial numbers are coming in and Apple might have sold as many as 1.5 million iPhone 4 units on launch day. Of course, this number includes the units pre-ordered or reserved since June 15 but it’s still an impressive estimate.

Apple hasn’t come forward with the official number of sold devices on day one but I am sure they will make it public soon. But analyst Gene Munster from Piper Jaffray says that Apple has sold anywhere between 1 million and 1.5 million units already:

“Our best guess is that Apple reserves about half of the units for pre-orders (mail delivery and in-store pick up) and half for in-store purchases (walk-ins), implying total sales for the launch (including the 600k already announced for online and first three days) of between 1.0m to 1.5m. This would be the biggest iPhone launch (compare to 3GS at 1m).”

The iPhone 3GS’ first weekend was a very hot one with one million devices going out the door. The iPhone 4 however will sell a lot better than the 3GS and, that’s our note, a lot better than the HTC EVO 4G or Droid Incredible on launch day.

What these analysts don’t mention, apparently, are the issues of the iPhone 4. While some of them can be overlooked as they can be avoided (scratches and drops) or automatically fixed (yellow screen spots), the reception issue is something users will find quite annoying.

Analyst Maynard Um from UBS Investment Research found out that:

• 68% of buyers find FaceTime as the most attractive new feature of the iPhone 4
• 24% like the HD features including HD video recording
• 64% plan to buy the $299 32GB iPhone 4 handset, most of them knowing that the new HD capabilities of the device require more storage space
• 80% of buyers are upgrading from a previous model
• 7% are switching from BlackBerry
• 4% are switching from Nokia
• 3% are switching from HTC
• 2% are switching from Samsung
• 78% own a Mac
• 33% own an iPad
• 30% own an iPod touch
• 100% own an iPod

Granted this is just a small survey (over 100 customers outside two Apple stores in New York) it’s still very relevant as it shows exactly that iPhone 4 customers are already Apple customers of some sort with most of them owning at least on Apple-made device. But it also shows that lots of people are pretty well informed when it comes to the new iPhone and would buy the device despite some obvious issues.

Have you purchased your iPhone 4 already?