• by Mark Walsh , June 9, 2010

Sprint's estimate of initial sales for the HTC Evo 4G turned out to be too good to be true. The carrier has acknowledged that it overstated first-day sales of the Evo, the first 4G phone released in the U.S. Sprint said Monday that Friday sales were three times the number of Samsung Instinct and Palm Pre devices sold during their first three days combined.

But Evo sales were actually in line with the number of Instinct and Pre phones sold in their first three days combined. "We inadvertently erred in the comparison," said Sprint in a statement. The overstatement led Walter Piecyk, a Sprint watcher and analyst at financial firm BTIG, to lower his original Evo 4G weekend sales estimate from 300,000 units to half that amount.

He also found the phone was in short supply in stores due to strong demand and so doesn't expect Evo sales figures to increase dramatically during the week.