Today Bloomberg reported Microsoft has “shipped” 2 million copies of Windows Phone 7 to phone manufacturers.  (as opposed to phones actually sold to consumers)

That’s 500,000 more than was reported on Dec. 21st of last month.   Explaining that difference gave me an interesting theory.   I bet that’s roughly the number of phones that have been sold to consumers. 

Think about it.  A company Microsoft’s size has a chain by which information goes through.  The 1.5 million number was released via the marketing dept which means there are all kinds of approvals that had to be involved.   So those weren’t the most current numbers (Microsoft launched Windows Phone 7 only a couple months earlier)

Now remember Windows Phone 7 had a massive launch on October 11th.  10 Phones launched in 30 countries available on 60 different carriers.  That’s a lot. 

Each of those carriers in each of those countries had to supply phones to all their various retail outlets so they could be sold.   Meaning it isn’t hard to imagine 1.5 million phones going out just to stock all the retail outlets around the world. 

Having said that I’d direct you to the Windows Phone 7 Facebook app.  Last month this became the focus of many blogs because Facebook is so integral to WP7.  So in theory the Facebook app is a good indicator of how many actual phones have been sold.  On Dec. 17th that number was around 210,000.  Now it’s at 366,000. 

Not bad but not great.

That brings me to my point.  Assuming 1.5 million was around the number of phones ordered to stock the shelves of the initial offering and assuming WP7 has sold a little over 366,000 (I’m sure there are a few people who don’t install the Facebook app) it sure looks like those 500,000 extra licenses are the phones that actually sold.   Since they’d have to be restocked (hence the additional orders)

But again, just a theory…