Yes, I just corrected my sales numbers. Doesn't really change my point that the linear relationship assumption is not a good one, caveat or not.

Anyway, here's the link to the 10-K if anyone else wants to take a look at it: http://www.apple.com/investor/.

The 6.7 billion revenue for iPhone sales in 2009 figure that you quote is the net sales. The 4.5 billion sales figure in the story about Strategy Analytics estimates does not specifiy, so it could be gross sales or some other metric.

On the other hand, Apple's total operating income for 2009 was 7.6 billion. It is a little hard to believe that 1.6 billion of that came from the iPhone alone in the fourth quarter, even if sales were down for the year on iPods and computers (but grew 266% for the iPhone).

Anyway, it's all getting a little complicated and I still find it hard to believe that Strategy Analytics posted such easily debunked estimates. It's not like they can't read the 10-K and other documents themselves, which one would assume anyone making such estimates would do.

But even if the estimates are wrong, it does seem like the iPhone may well account for the majority of Apple's profits, which is still an interesting state of affairs.