All-time iPhone sales are about to surpass all-time iPod sales

The iPhone, Apple’s wildly successful smartphone, is coming up on a significant milestone. The handset is about to pass another one of the Cupertino company’s wildly successful products, the iPod MP3 player, in all-time sales.

The achievement was noted on Twitter this morning by Ender’s analyst Benedict Evans, who pointed out that with cumulative iPhone sales at 356 million units and lifetime iPod sales at 375 million, it should happen this quarter…

Here’s the tweet 

Wall Street estimates that Apple sold between 26.7M and 28M iPhones during the June quarter. That would bring its new cumulative total to around 383 million, meaning Apple would have to sell 8 million iPods to prevent the eclipse.

And if you’re familiar with the company, you know how unlikely that is. It only sold a little more than 5 million iPods last quarter, and is expected to sell less this time around as the fall refresh/holiday shopping season inches closer.

But if for some reason it doesn’t happen this quarter, it will certainly happened next. Apple is expected to expand its iPhone lineup this fall by introducing a new budget iPhone model, which should compliment the rumored iPhone 5S nicely.

Though sales have dwindled in recent months, the iPod has been a huge product for Apple over the years. The device, which debuted in October 2001 as a 6.5-ounce chunk of metal/plastic, is attributed with helping turn the company around.