Because apple is protective of their numbers and they have required their distributors to a code of omerta. If he himself breaks this, then the agreement is broken.

How difficult is it to believe that he was stating a historical event? why did he not say as of today? he carefully chose his words "in a little over two years we have sold 30 million".

WE will see come earnings release.

Its been 2 years and 2.5 months since Version 1 was released. Slightly over by any reasonable definition.

Why would he include the first few months when the sold very few, and ignore the most recent months when they are selling in excess of a million a month?

Just not logical.

Like the person who opines on the rounding, by the same logic, I don't think when he said slightly over two years, he meant 2 years and 2 months. I bet he meant they hit 30 million sometime in July.

Marketing and PR people never round DOWN. I was giving them the benefit of the doubt, because they probably rounded UP. Who would round off 2 million handsets?

Its not a horrible quarter, mind you, but Q4 tends to be a big quarter, and you would think that with all of those original iPhones coming off contract and many many others upgrading prior to the end of their contract and 99 dollar ipnones that it would have been better than it is.

They may make up for it in iTunes revenue. (No, Rene, you can't make that lame claim that Apple only runs the iTunes store to support hardware sales any more. Not after posting the numbers above).

Note: Q1 for Apple = Oct-Dec. As of today, (10 sept) we are in Q4.

So a quick look at these numbers (I'll keep it simple):

30 million iPhones sold to date.

That is generation 1 thru the 3Gs.

Now thru Q3, the number stood at 26,378,000.*

Getting to 30 million means Apple only sold 3.62 million in Q4. Q4 has 21 days left, so bump that to 4.69 million expected in the quarter.

Q4 is historically a good quarter for iPhone sales. Last year there were 6.89 million sold in Q4.

This year Apple will be lucky to see 68% of that number. A 32% Drop Year over Year. That is huge. Even in a down economy, that is HUGE.

And that Drop came in the quarter that saw the introduction of a new phone and a $99 phone.

*Numbers from here: http://tinyurl.com/qqnfx9

73.3% iPod 17.9% Other 7.2% Sandisk 1.1% Microsoft

Now can we use the "m" word without the fanboys jumping down our throats?