The conventional wisdom around Palm’s comeback device is that the Pre has been overshadowed by the launch of the latest iPhone, which has put a damper on sales. But have the number of Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre’s sold so far been seriously underestimated? Charter (NSDQ: CHTR) Equity Research analyst Edward Snyder said in a report released on Monday that talks with his sources in the manufacturing and retail channels have led him to believe the Palm has sold 300,000 Pre phones and that it is struggling to keep up with demand.

That’s nearly double other estimates that put the number of Pres sold around 150,000. Because Snyder is the cellphone industry’s perennial pessimist and has often questioned the lofty hopes that carriers have for smartphones and data services, the nytimes.com’s Bits blog believes his report bears notice. This is what he’s predicting:

—Snyder estimates that Palm is currently pumping out 15,000 Pres a day and will ship one million phones to Sprint in the first full quarter of production.

—Palm will try to quickly expand its market, which will mean that it will start building more devices using the Pre’s operating system WebOS for more carriers, expanding beyond its current exclusive deal with Sprint (NYSE: S). Snyder believes that Verizon (NYSE: VZ) will sell a WebOS device built by Palm in early 2010 and AT&T (NYSE: T) will release one shortly after.