While there’s been nothing official announced, Bank of America analyst Scott Craig believes Apple will release 3 million 3G iPhones in May, with an additional 8 million coming in the 3rd quarter of 2008. This comes on the heels of a retraction of a comment by Ken Dulaney of Gartner where he stated that Apple had already ordered 10 million 3G iPhones.

Rumors had been swirling in Asia about the order, which has certainly not been scotched by Apple or anyone else. Gartner is just covering their butts in case it turns out to be false. But with Craig and others pointing towards a big 10 million+ push for the next generation iPhones, it’s looking more and more like a reality.

In Dulaney’s initial statement about the new iPhone, he also said the new iPhone would have an OLED display instead of the current LCD. The OLED not only provides better resolution, but uses less power than the LCD screen, which will be needed with extra power drain being used by the 3G capabilities.

Can Apple realistically move 10 million iPhones? It’s not particularly far fetched, according to analysts. Current iPhone users report they are happy with the product, so those leery of buying the first round will cave in to the positive word of mouth and buy in. The market in Europe may open up as well, since 3G technology is already common there and other smartphones currently run faster than the iPhone.

I can already promise Apple that I’ll buy one. So now only 9,999,999 left to sell.

With faster iPhones and the possible inclusion of “white space” technology starting next year, mobile marketing becomes a heck of a lot easier. We’ll see how it goes.

Thanks a lot to Ipodobserver.com for all the great info.

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