Verizon started taking pre-orders of iPhone 4 at 3 AM on Feb 3rd and stopped taking orders at 8:10 PM on the same day, after seeing the most successful first day sales in the history of the company. Verizon sold off the initial pre-order stock of iPhone 4 in less than 18 hours and the iPhone was only available to current Verizon customers. The general market launch of the iPhone 4 on the Verizon Wireless network will occur on Feb. 10, when the phone will be available to non-Verizon customers also.

“This was an exciting day,” said Dan Mead, president and chief executive officer for Verizon Wireless. “In just our first two hours, we had already sold more phones than any first day launch in our history. And, when you consider these initial orders were placed between the hours of 3 a.m. and 5 a.m., it is an incredible success story. It is gratifying to know that our customers responded so enthusiastically to this exclusive offer – designed to reward them for their loyalty.”

Few things of note are – Verizon sold more iPhone 4 in first two hours than any other handset on launch day, which means launch days sales of Droid, Incredible, Galaxy S or Droid X were not even comparable. Second the iPhone 4 pre-orders were only available to current Verizon customers, which means that there is a very large pent-up demand for iPhones among Verizon customers. 

Many analysts are estimating that around 100,000 iPhone 4 were pre-ordered, but we think those estimates are very low. It was reported Motorola Droid sold around 250,000 units on launch weekend and about 100,000 of those were sold on launch day. That would mean Apple and Verizon sold at least 100,000 units in first two hours. So how many did they sell in rest 16 hours?

We believe the number is at least 2x – 4x higher than 100,000. According to Ming-Chi Kuo of Concord Securities, Apple produced 2 million CDMA iPhone 4 units in December and January for Verizon launch in February. This indicates that Apple plans to ship 2 million units in first few weeks of Verizon iPhone launch. And it is very likely that they plan to ship over 1 million iPhone 4 units for the launch weekend itself.

Initial pre-orders are clear indicators that iPhone 4 demand is going to be very high on Verizon. Also, a survey done by uSamp of 700 smartphone users in late January found that 54% of current Android and Blackberry owners on Verizon, and 26% of smartphone owners on AT&T are ready to switch to Verizon iPhone 4. A sample size of 700 people is very small and can be bit erroneous, but is a good indicator of where things are heading.

On a lighter note, check out the “Yes, I can hear you now” ad by Verizon for iPhone 4 below.