Hasta La Gadget!

The Verizon iPhone isn’t any more real right now than it was a few years ago, but that’s not going to stop analysts from making bold predictions about the phone. The handset, which is currently rumored to be hitting the market at the beginning of next year, will sell nine million units in 2011, according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster.

That number is 36 percent of the total number of phones he expects Verizon to sell next year. It’s also two million less than the 11 million iPhones he expects AT&T to sell next year. Munster expects most of the new Verizon iPhone buyers to come over from AT&T.

The two carriers will sell a combined 20 million iPhones next year, according to his numbers–more than the 17.5 million he expects AT&T to sell, should the Verizon deal never come to fruition. The analyst told Apple Insider that these numbers “may be conservative.”

According to the report, AT&T will sell a total of 63 million iPhones globally next year–that number is up from 46.3 million in 2010. The number will jump to 78.3 million globally in 2012. Apple and Verizon are both expected to nab 14 million each.