HTC: More than 600,000 G1’s Shipped by Year End

While it’s certainly a fraction of the 1.5 million figure that was thrown around a few weeks back (us included), 600,000 devices sold/shipped in two months is nothing to laugh at.

That’s the figure coming directly from the top over at HTC. Speaking to Mercury News, CEO Peter Chou says “ It will be more than what we originally planned. I’m saying we will ship more than 600,000.“ We’re imagining that once these devices are in the wild, people will become more curious and start to make the jump to T-Mobile.

So what does 2009 look like? Chou wouldn’t say. His response was along the lines of “Apple doesn’t even talk about things that far down the road.”

When asked why the device is not called the HTC G1, the CEO says that brand recognition for T-Mobile is very high and that is was okay with them if they helped promote that.

Fun fact: When asked about the reason to buy a G1 over the iPhone, Chou used the word “very” no less than 7 times.