Apple Inc. (AAPL) made the news today and led the tech rally in an overall down market today by announcing that it had sold its one millionth iPhone nearly a month ahead of schedule. It took only 74 days for Apple to achieve the landmark and may have been done so quickly due to the recent price drop of $200.

I didn’t think Apple would be reporting this strong of demand for the iPhone after it slashed prices, as I concluded that to be a sign of weakening sales figures. Now, the real question is why did Steve Jobs decide to cut the price if sales are stronger than predicted? This could mean a $200,000,000 potential lost profit on the next million iPhones sold.

Current analyst expectations for iPhone unit sales volumes over the next year range from under five million to as many as 12.3 million. But Apple’s official estimate is to sell 10 million iPhones in the first 18 months of sales. Meeting or exceeding that lofty goal will require a very swift acceleration in sales, but could provide Apple with quite a windfall of profits during the next fiscal year.

[tags]iphone, apple, steve jobs, shaun carter, at&t, investing, technology, mobile phone, cell phone[/tags]