Interesting snippet in the Guardian's technology pages today:

Is a phone sold when it's on a boat? Or does it have to be in a customer's hand? With the iPhone 3G, perhaps either counts.
July 15, 2008 3:14 PM

As the Fortune 2.0 blog notes,

In a report to clients issued a few hours before Apple’s announcement, [Gene] Munster [of analysts Piper Jaffray, who follows Apple closely] had estimated that Apple had sold about 425,000 iPhones worldwide and that it would take Apple at least 17 days to hit the one million mark.

But instead the magic number came up in just three days. How's that happen, then?

One explanation for the discrepancy may have to do with how Apple counts sales. Sales at Apple Stores are recorded at the register. But sales to its partners — in this case, AT&T and the overseas carriers — are recorded when the devices leave the loading docks in Asia. In other words, some of those 1 million iPhones recorded as sold by Apple (AAPL) may still be in transit.

Indeed, Munster makes the same point in a revised report issued to clients later Monday morning.

But certainly Apple's sales were gigantically faster this time round, as Munster explained: "The improvement is driven by two key factors: 1) international availablilty in 21 countries, and 2) a 60% lower entry-level price point." No argument there. But we'd really like to see some solid numbers from O2 and other partners.

I'm particularly interested to know how many were supplied to (and sold in) the UK. The web seems fairly unsure about it; I've seen numbers as low as 18,000 supplied for the launch (including Carphone Warehouse stores) and numbers as high as 78,000. Certainly, however, no more than 40% of the number that expressed interest via the O2 website weeks in advance of the launch.

I've actually now had a chance to play on one, by the way - one of my colleagues at work got one on the launch date; found out yesterday and had a play on it for ten minutes... It's very nice, and despite the stories about lousy battery life (my colleague said he's found it no worse than the previous model) and lack of facilities like no MMS and not that good a camera... I want one so bad it's not true.