Apple's iPhone Misses Sales Targets

Apple's (AAPL Quote) iPhone missed a 1 million unit sales target and rivals are rejoicing.

While the much-hyped phone helped AT&T (T Quote) take a big bite out of its competitors' business, industry observers say effects are far from deadly.

Analysts estimate somewhere between 200,000 and 700,000 iPhones have been sold since the debut blitz started Friday evening. And about half of the sales came by winning customers from Sprint (S Quote), Verizon Wireless -- co-owned by Verizon (VZ Quote) and Vodafone (VOD Quote) -- and T-Mobile, the U.S. unit of Deutche Telekom (DT Quote).

The sales goal -- or so-called whisper number -- both internally at Apple and on Wall Street was a nice round 1 million phones. ...