Analysts are saying that this weekend Apple could sell half a million iPhone 3G S handsets. This is a rather large number and is significantly less than either the 3G bought in with its launches.

Although some are saying it is due to the limit on the number of countries that are getting the 3G S, after all 21 countries had the 3G at its launch while the 3G S will only be released in 8.

The low number could also be due to the relatively minor improvements made to the new 3G S; including a complete lack of any outside improvements to the appearance of the phone.

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Munster expects Apple will sell 500,000 iPhones this weekend, according to a research note sent to clients, reports Fortune. That’s half as many phones as Apple sold when it launched the iPhone 3G, but Apple sold that phone in 21 countries on the first day. In comparison, the iPhone 3G S will be sold in only eight countries on its first day.

Still, 500,000 phones sold in three days is a lofty number. Consider that the iPhone 3G was a fairly big upgrade over its predecessor when it was released, and most notably added the much faster 3G data speeds to the device.

Two days ago, Jon Peddie Research (JPR), published the new numbers regarding the graphic card manufacturers’ market share for the first quarter of 2009. According to their research, both Intel and Nvidia were able to gain, while AMD/ATI lost market shares.

Intel is current market leader with 49.7% and 37.20 million sold untis, Nvidia is second with 31.1% market share and 23.26 million untis, and AMD/ATI was only able to sell 12.81 million units, bringing their market share down to 17.1%. Another interesting observation was that after eight consecutive years, for the first time, the negative sales from Q4 to Q1 turned into positive sales, with a 3.29% change from Q4 2008 to Q1 2009.

All in all and compared year to year, things didn’t look so good, though – which had to be expected, considering the current economical crisis. In raw numbers this means that “shipments dropped to 74.9 million units, -21.1% from this quarter last year.”

Jon Peddie Research estimates that “the cleaning out of old inventory, both in the electronics, automotive, and real-estate markets should be pretty well completed by the end of the summer (and some amazing deals will be available if you are happy with 2008 technology).”