iPhone 3G outsells original in weeks

Author: Gareth Halfacree
Published: 27th August 2008

Steve will be most pleased that the second generation iPhone is selling far more rapidly than the first.

Despite some customer complaints, issues with the colour caste, and the revelation of a centralised application blacklist, Apple's latest mobile handset, the iPhone 3G, has done extremely well for the company.

Figures quoted by TechCrunch show sales of the iPhone 3G outnumbering the six million original models just seven weeks after the device was made available for sale. By contrast, it took the original iPhone over a year to hit that number.

The success of the device isn't slowing, either: TechCrunch quotes un-named sources at manufacturer Foxconn as saying that the company is producing 800,000 iPhone 3G units for Apple every week – and that number is rising rapidly as producing is ramped up to meet demand. At this rate, Apple will have sold over 40 million units in the first year, nearly seven times as many as the original iPhone managed.

The success isn't just good news for Apple, either: with the launch of the App Store Apple created a means for software developers to sell to an almost captive audience – and the more iPhones that are sold, the more people the developers can sell too. Whether this means that we'll start seeing more iPhone software from big names remains to be seen – but it's certainly not a niche market any more.

Do these figures prove that Apple has improved on its original design and fixed the outstanding issues, or is it merely evidence that good marketing and shiny packaging will sell anything? Share your thoughts over in the forums.