Apple Inc. aims to sell 10 million by the end of 2008. With this goal, the company hints that it would abandon its business model of having a piece of revenue from mobile carriers to reach the 10-million-unit-sales mark.

Analysts say that Apple seemed blithe about reaching the 10 million number.

“I get the funny sense that ultimately the whole idea of locked iPhones and the revenue almost doesn’t interest them,” says Ezra Gottheil, an analyst from Technology Business Research Inc.

Apple is confident on hitting 10 million sales for the year. According to the sales figures of Apple for the first three months of 2008, the company sold 1.7 million iPhone worldwide, leaving more than 8 million to reach its sales goal.

“I think they think they’ll go explosively into China this year”, Gottheil says sticking to his predictions that Apple would have to get the Chinese market to sell 10 million iPhone units and completely forget about revenue sharing.

In Europe and the U.S., Apple’s business model involved exclusive deals with a single mobile carrier for each country. In return, Apple receives revenues for each iPhone customer’s monthly subscription for the carriers. With this in mind, attacking the massive markets of China or India could possible mean that the company is willing to give up its revenue-sharing model to reach its sales goal.

In October, Apple’s chief operating officer Tim Cook said that one in every six iPhones are purchased with the intent of hacking the hardware and using it with other carriers.

In a conference call between Gottheil and Cook, answering the question about the recent iPhone shortages in Apple retail stores, Cook blamed the sales to buyers who bought units with the intention of unlocking the device, saying, “Our U.S. stores have experienced more stock outs, or relatively more, and we believe the reason is that there are more phones being bought there with the intention of unlocking.”