Jobs has sold his 10 million iPhones

Yesterday’s earnings call reported that Apple sold 6.89 million iPhones in its FY2008 4th quarter ending Sept. 27. According to the Merc,, the iPhone was the US leader for smartphone sales during that period, surpassing the BlackBerry.

This figure is slightly below the estimates of the biggest iPhone boosters, and totals only 9.3 million phones for the year. However, MacWorld reports that Apple has confirmed that it passed the 10 million mark in the past few weeks after the end of the quarter. This means that with the Christmas season their 2008 sales should easily surpass 12 million units.

Before the iPhone was released, many (notably including Steve Ballmer) predicted they would not hit 10 million. As I suspected, Jobs was sandbagging by making a prediction he knew he could make.

This is still a very small part of the picture. There’s been almost no discussion of international sales since the iPhone 3G was introduced. Given past iPod sales, I suspect that the iPhone 3G is not going to make a dramatic change in the US vs. overseas sales, and that the iPhone fad is still very much an American phenomenon.