Numbers, numbers, numbers.

• Apple sold 6.1 million iPhones in the year following its launch
• Bloomberg estimates Palm will sell 2.6 million Pre phones in its first 12 months
• An analyst* reports Palm needs to sell 5.5 million units to revive profits, and
• 8 million units to justify its current stock price

First of all, the fact that we’re comparing the sales figures in an economic crisis to the sales figures in 2007 is apples and oranges. You could also say that Apple’s share price in 2007 reached a high of $199+ and now it’s barely at $100 while Palm’s stock has doubled since the Pre was announced. Palm selling half the number of devices doesn’t seem so bad in comparison any more, now does it?

The striking data here TO ME is the 5.5 million units for revival and 8.1 million to match the stock value. These figures reportedly come from Morgan Keegan analyst Tavis McCourt and they seem a little outrageous to me. I think 5.5 million units could be considered an outrageous success and much less than that would still be an incredible success by mostly anyone’s standards, especially when more WebOS phones and devices are surely on the way.

But one thing I think is true – Palm won’t reach their sales goals if Sprint is the only carrier to have the Palm Pre. While exclusivity is wonderful for building hype and attention, I’m sure Palm execs are looking at stats just like these and if they are, I can’t see Sprint being the exclusive carrier for any longer than the remainder of 2009. To be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Palm Pre (or another WebOS phone) on Verizon Wireless by the end of the calendar year.

But for you number junkies and iPhone fanboys or unfanboys out there, I thought you might find these statistics interesting.

[Via Bloomberg, MocoNews]