The latest estimates are in, and they have Apple shipping something like 5 million iPhone 3G units for fiscal Q4 which ends on September 30. Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster has raised his previous iPhone 3G sales estimates from 4.1 million by the end of September to a more optimistic 5 million units by the end of fiscal Q4 2008.
With about 2.4 million first-generation iPhones already in circulation, the new target would have Apple selling 7.4 million iPhones before the start of the holiday shopping season. Previous estimates that had Apple churning out 800,000 iPhone 3G’s a week had Apple breaking their 10 million iPhone sales goal before the end of the 2008 calendar year. This new estimate, however, leaves Apple with a good bit of iPhone sales to make up before the year is out.
If Apple does indeed announce iPhone 3G sales of 5 million for fiscal Q4 2008, Cupertino is going to have to sell approximately 2.6 million iPhone 3Gs by the end of the 2008 calendar year in order to meet their 10 million iPhone sales goal. But, with the holiday shopping season looming over the horizon, and the possibility of the company bringing back in-home iPhone activation, Apple could just meet their self-imposed goal in time for it to actually matter.
[Via: Fortune]