The "whisper number" sales goal for the iPhone on opening weekend was one million phones. The fact that Apple seems to have missed that goal has competitors breathing a little easier, according to Scott Moritz of The Street on Tuesday.

"The sales goal -- or so-called whisper number -- both internally at Apple and on Wall Street was a nice round 1 million phones," Scott Moritz wrote. Estimates have ranged from a low of 200,000 phones sold since June 29th to about 700,000.

If Apple had sold out completely at the debut, demand for the phone would be seen as unquenched and potentially unknowable. But since only about three-quarters of the magical allotment were sold, "We now know that demand was less than a million," said IAG Research’s Roger Entner. "There’s a lot of rejoicing at Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile," he added.

Analysts, according to Mr. Moritz, estimate that about half the iPhone sold came from taking customers away from the other carriers, Sprint, Verizon, and T-mobile. The other half consisted of new AT&T customers.

As a result, Mr. Entner thinks, "For the other carriers, it’s not a game changer. It’s business as usual again."

Time will tell is this assessment turns out to be true. Investors, however, seem to be pretty happy and have not overlooked the idea that Apple and AT&T are actually making good money on a mobile phone.