On the other hand, the actual figures reported above have been confirmed through multiple trusted sources in Russian Press, and also official shareholder reports issued by operators themselves to shareholders. So I have no doubt that they are more or less correct.

As to why Russian operators where suckered into ordering these amounts, I have no idea. One of the reasons might be that there were hundreds of thousands of jailbroken first gen. iPhones imported into Russia even before the negotiations began. And the negotiations went on before the financial meltdown, everyone was feeling rich and certain about the brighter future then. And Apple must have played each of the 3 operators against each other masterfully. They all wanted iPhone very much, and I don't think it was possible to do an exclusive in Russia due to the legal resons.

You are also wrong about the Russian market. It is considdered one of the key markets for high end devices and fashion/image items (and iPhone 3G ceratinly was one at the time)

In France, it took Orange 18 months to reach 1 million. [1] In the UK, it took O2 16 months. [2] In Germany, T-Mobile (according to rumours) still hasn't reached 1 million after 20 months.

Further, you claim that Russian carriers had to purchase 400k iPhones for the launchin late 2008. At the European launch of the original iPhone in late 2007 there were reports that O2 had agreed to an initial purchase of 200k, while T-Mobile and Orange bought 100k each.

These are countries where almost every consumer could afford an iPhone, should they decide to want it. In Russia on the other hand, the iPhone is financially out of reach to a big part of the population. In light of this, a realistic goal for the Russian market would be not 1.6 million, but 0.16 million per year.

[1] http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10247899-37.html
[2] http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/news.phtml/2259...