This past weekend Apple launched the new iPhone 3GS, beating analyst expectations while selling over one million models. This is especially remarkable since the 3GS matched the 1 million sales tally of last year’s iPhone 3G launch, while only selling in only eight countries; last year the 3G was launched in 21 countries. During the next two months the iPhone 3Gs will be rolling out to 66 more countries. Given the 3GS’ sales potential demonstrated this weekend, as well as the lower $99 price point for the 8GB iPhone 3G, it will be interesting to see what Apple’s total iPhone will be this quarter. The iPhone 3G launch resulted in a considerable bump in third quarter sales last year.

It will also be interesting what happens in the rest of the smartphone market. According to Gartner Research, mobile phones sales dipped 8.6% in 2008, while smartphone sales went up 12.6%. Research In Motion (RIM) has had a strong hold in the smartphone market so far, but last week RIM forecast second quarter sales figures below analysts’ expectations. It’s difficult to say how much this has to do with the new iPhone 3GS but a Piper Jaffray’s analyst Gene Munster did a survey this weekend of new iPhone 3GS customers, indicating that the BlackBerry defectors were 12% of the 3GS customers, double the 6% found last year. All signs point to a tighter race this year between RIM and Apple.

UPDATE (June 23): An interesting article today in MediaPost mentions another smartphone study conducted by the firm CrowdScience, which further illustrates the challenges RIM is facing. The study indicates that 40% of smartphone users would don’t have an iPhone would switch to one, while only 14% of non-BlackBerry users would switch to the RIM device.