A recent PriceGrabber survey revealed that 54 percent of those responding weren’t considering an iPhone. The converse, however, is equally interesting: 42 percent are considering an iPhone purchase.

The results were based on a survey of 3,066 online customers from May 20 to June 5.

For the 54 percent who are not considering an iPhone, the principal objections were that the iPhone costs too much (41%) and that they prefer a carrier other than AT&T (22%). This finding was before Apple announced the US$199 iPhone at WWDC on June 9th.

Of note was the fact that of the 4 percent who already own an iPhone, 40 percent of those own two devices: one device for work and the iPhone for personal use. This trend has been discovered before.

When asked what the best feature of the iPhone is, most cited the fingertip navigation; 17 percent cited the Web browsing and 16 percent cited the integrated applications.

While some have focused on the 54 percent not considering an iPhone, the 42 percent number attests to the considerable appeal of the iPhone for nearly half of this sample population. More significantly, the survey was completed before customers were sure about the US$199 (8 GB) price for the iPhone 3G.

Recently, analysts have been predicting that Apple will sell more than 20 million iPhones in 2009, and if this survey is any indication of the popularity of the phone, Apple should have no trouble meeting that number.