Piper Jaffray estimates 2 to 2.5 million Apple iPhone 4S units will be sold through Sunday

With the Apple iPhone 4S officially launched today, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster estimates that 2-2.5 million units of the latest iPhone will be sold through Sunday. And while that is a nice increase from the 1.7 million copies of the Apple iPhone 4 that were sold on its opening weekend, it is a lot smaller than the 4 million in sales that the Yankee Group had predicted for the release of the latest iteration of Apple's touchscreen smartphone.

Piper Jaffray produced a survey of Apple iPhone 4S and found that a majority were AT&T customers. At the same time, less than half are buying the cheapest 16GB model. The results show that 8% of Apple iPhone 4S buyers are switching from an Android model, which is an increase from the 3% of Apple iPhone 4 buyers who switched from the green robot during last year's June launch. Speaking of the Apple iPhone 4, 30% of iPhone 4S buyers are upgrading from the previous version of the phone.

Despite the increase in sales during the opening weekend for the Apple iPhone 4S vs. the iPhone 4, Piper Jaffray noted that the number of people waiting in line outside the Apple store on New York's Fifth Avenue on Friday was lower than last year's figure. The brokerage house says that 460 people were on line today versus 1,300 last year.

source: BusinessInsider