RIM: 50 Million Served Since '99 / Apple: 30 Million Served Since 2007

Amid the firehose of announcements at this morning’s Apple event, one in particular stood out. The first real combined sales number for the iPhone and iPod touch. Apple (AAPL) has sold 30 million of them. Of those, 17 million were iPhones (13.7 million sold in 2008). The remaining 13 million were iPod touches. And that tells us three things: Apple exceeded its 10 million iPhones sold in ’08 goal by well over 3 million. The iPod touch is not simply a defeatured iPhone, but a monster hit in its own right. And finally, the iPhone OS platform is far, far larger than anyone had thought. And it’s growing very quickly. Consider this: Research in Motion (RIMM) sold its 50 millionth BlackBerry just last month. But the device has been on the market since 1999. The iPhone and iPod touch haven’t even been on the market for a full two years yet and their sales together are more than half of what the Berry’s sold in a decade.

An apples to oranges comparison? Perhaps. But from a platform standpoint — iPhone OS to BlackBerry OS — still an interesting one.