Exclusive US iPhone 3G carrier AT&T announced their Q2 results yesterday, and during their conference call informed us of this staggering little factoid:

[S]ales of Apple’s iPhone 3G during the first twelve days were nearly double that of last year, this despite shortages that have seen backorders stretch one to three weeks at its retail stores.

We already knew Apple had sold 1,000,000 of their second-generation handsets in just 3 days (almost 25 times faster than the original iPhone 2G), but that was (I assume) a global number covering the 22 launch countries (and may have included units in partner channels). This quantity — while ironically not quantified — is US specific, and is impressive given that some pundits felt the all-important early adapters already had iPhones, and would get 2.0 for free, and so would likely have less incentive to upgrade. Maybe, maybe not. The $199 cost-of-entry could have triggered an even bigger flood of first time buyers who had balked at the previous price point.

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