Search activity suggests iPhone is biggest-ever product launch

A new comScore study about Internet search activity for Apple's new iPhone suggests that Americans have conducted an average of 274,000 iPhone-related searches each week since the beginning of the year.

After the product was first announced by Apple CEO Steve Jobs at Macworld on January 9, iPhone search activity reached 1.1 million searches for the week ending Jan. 14.

From February to May, the number of weekly searches was between 80,000 and 200,000.

As Apple's major iPhone advertising campaign kicked off in June, search activity climbed to 704,000 iPhone-related searches for the week ending June 10, followed by 727,000 during the week ending June 17, and finally maxing out with 1.2 million for the week ending June 24.

Through June 24, almost 6.9 million searches were conducted that included the keyword "iPhone." Of those searches, 3.7 million were for "iPhone" and 638,000 were for "Apple iPhone." The most common related topics were price and release date.

IPhone-related searches have generated more than 7.8 million click-throughs to Web sites since the beginning of the year, led by Apple.com with 2.3 million.