The third calendar quarter of 2008 (Apple F4Q08) was a record for iPhone sales. 6.9 million iPhones were sold from July through September, more than the 6.1 million iPhones sold in prior quarters combined. Steve Jobs mentioned during Apple’s most recent quarterly earnings call (transcript) that the company had even beat out Research in Motion (RIM), which sold 6.1 million BlackBerry devices during the same period. iPhone 3G was launched in 21 countries on July 11th and is now for sale in 62 countries, with 18 more planned in the coming months.

Read more on my O’Reilly Radar blog posting.