iPhone rollout: 42 countries, 575 million potential customers

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster summarized the flood of recent iPhone deals in a note to clients Friday. The key numbers:

• 46 carriers announced to date (up from 6 currently)
• 42 countries covered (up from 6)
• 575 million total available market (up from 153 million)

Munster had expected Apple to announce a flurry of deals with overseas carriers in 2008, but not this fast. "The iPhone's international rollout," he writes, "is about 8 months ahead of our original schedule."

Assuming that the device maintains its current 3% market penetration, the recent announcements give Munster "increased confidence" that Apple will meet his published sales target of 12.9 million iPhones in calendar year 2008.

Well they should, since 3% of 575 million is 17.25 million iPhones.

For 2009, Munster is sticking with his estimate of 45 million iPhones -- a target that represents the high end among mainstream Apple analysts. Apple achieves this, he says, by 1) opening up China and Japan, for a total available market of 1.1 billion, 2) introducing a lower-cost iPhone in January '09, and 3) increasing its market penetration to 6%.

As for the current round of deals, Munster believes that most of them are non-exclusive, a change that he expects will have a positive impact on iPhone sales, a slight negative impact on iPhone revenue, but "no material" impact on Apple's (AAPL) published earnings.