“Apple shares fell more than three percent to below $585 after Verizon said it activated 25 percent fewer iPhones last quarter than it did during the last three months of 2011,” John Melloy reports for CNBC.

“Verizon sold 3.2 million iPhones last quarter, according to the company’s chief financial officer Francis Shammo. That’s down 26 percent from the 4.3 million iPhones activated during the fourth quarter of last year,” Melloy reports. “‘If Verizon’s percent of iPhone sales remains stable from Q4, then this could suggest that Apple will sell 28.2 million iPhones during the past quarter,’ wrote StreetInsider.com, a widely-followed provider of market insight, in a post that seemed to add to Apple selling pressure after its release. ‘If this is the case, then Apple would miss the consensus of 30 million iPhone units during the quarter.’”

“To be sure, last quarter including the big holiday spending period. What’s more, some analysts countered the Verizon extrapolation analysis by noting international sales would be stronger this time around,” Melloy reports. “‘We remain comfortable in our 33m unit estimate based on faster international growth fueled by the January launch of iPhone 4S in China,’ wrote Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster in a note Thursday afternoon amid the Apple sell-off.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Christmas quarter in the USA is a big selling period. Extrapolating worldwide iPhone unit sales based only on Verizon’s U.S. iPhone numbers for Christmas 2011 quarter vs. calendar Q112 is a fool’s errand and/or a manipulator’s trick.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Lynn Weiler" for the heads up.]