Apple iPhone Q1 sales tipped as largest ever - by far

Verizon Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo spoke up after the group's financial report this week with sales numbers for the iPhone that, if the group's percentages hold true, tip off Apple having their most successful sales for the iPhone ever. These numbers add up starting with Verizon's note that they sold 6.2 million iPhones this past quarter. If you take what we know about Verizon's quarter before the one we're seeing now, you'll see they sold 3.1 million iPhones, that including only the first 10 days of sales for the iPhone 5 along with the other models Verizon carried at the time – from there you'll begin to see the massive jump.

The following comparison you'll have to take with a bit of salt water because it's certainly not perfect, but it can be used as a general guide for what we're about to see from Apple. If you take Apple's previous sales quarter announcement (which again, doesn't line up perfectly with Verizon's month-to-month quarter), you'll find that Apple sold a total of 26.9 million iPhones. That includes 9 days of iPhone 5 sales while, again, Verizon's includes 10 days of sales (so the quarters are pretty close, anyway.)

The amount of iPhones sold by Verizon compared to Apple's total altogether shows that Verizon was responsible for 11.52% of all iPhone sales. If this number holds true through the quarter that's being reported by Verizon today, Apple is about to report a quarter where they've sold one entirely massive amount of iPhones. Keeping in mind this number is entirely based on the percentage of iPhones Verizon sold compared to Apple's total in the past, Apple may well be announcing a financial quarter in which they've sold 56 million iPhones total.

That's a massive amount of iPhones, needless to say, and it's well above projections no matter where you're looking for early guesses. According to the SF Chronicle and analyst Brian White, this projection isn't just a guess – they've got the Wall Street analysis showing 48 million units sold, too. Take that with some salt, of course, but stick around this week to see what Apple's numbers are this week and come back to see how accurate these numbers were. It could be big, massive, gigantic!