We dropped by the 5th Avenue Apple store last night around 10pm, and saw that there was still a line of several dozen people waiting to get into the the store. Easy conclusion: Record sales for the new iPhone.
We were right! Apple says it sold 1 million 3G iPhones in the first three days the gadget was on sale, blowing past the performance of the 1.0 unit a year ago. That's in line with projections from the likes of RBC analyst Mike Abramsky, who estimated that Apple would ship more than 1 million phones over the same time frame.
But it's significantly higher than Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster's estimate, released earlier this morning, which pegged sales at a mere 425,000. No idea what accounts for the discrepancy, so we expect to hear more from Gene later today.
Update: Gene just sent out another note. The discrepancy: Strong international sales and AT&T activation improvements. Apple also said iPhone and iPod touch owners downloaded 10 million apps over the weekend via the new App Store.
See Also: Apple To Ship More Than 1 Million iPhones This Weekend, Says RBC