AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T- message board) posted another three months of wireless growth for its fiscal fourth quarter results today, but some market watchers were disappointed by potentially weaker-than-expected sales of the iPhone.

    AT&T reported that it sold nearly 150,000 of the Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL - message board) phones in the day and a half before the end of the quarter and described the device as a hit.

    "In the last day and a half of the quarter, when the iPhone was made available, AT&T sold 146,000 iPhones, 40 percent to new customers," notes analyst Ken Hyers at Technology Business Research Inc. (TBR) . "The company most likely sold many more iPhones at launch, but due to the quarter ending during the weekend the handset went on sale, not all iPhone activations were reflected in the... results."

    Others, however, had been predicting bigger things from the iPhone. Notably, Gene Munster at U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray who put out a research note claiming that the carrier would sell half a million iPhones in the first weekend of launch.

    Apple itself had never been that specific but previously predicted it would sell 10 million units by the end of 2008. (See Cingular: The iPhone Price Is Right .)

    A spokesman for AT&T says the operator was very happy with sales and with the number of iPhone accounts switched on around the launch: "The activation process worked extraordinarily well -- we couldn't be more delighted."

    Munster hasn't yet responded to Unstrung's questions on his prediction. "He's been bombarded with requests," the press person at Piper Jaffray explained this afternoon.

    The analyst, however, is such a star in Apple watching circles that he now has his own doppelganger blogger! The fake Gene had plenty to say on the subject of the iPhone.