In a recent clarification about the launch-day sales of its new handset HTC EVO 4G, Sprint said on Tuesday that it had “inadvertently” exaggerated the first-day sales figures of the handset which hit the market last Friday.

While the clarification from Sprint makes the EVO slightly less than the smash hit that it was earlier believed to be, Sprint has nonetheless acknowledged that the phone has broken the carrier’s own internal records of first-day sales of other Sprint phones. 

According to Sprint, the sales figures of the EVO were much better than the sales of the carrier’s earlier record-holders – six times more than the Samsung Instinct, and two times stronger than the Palm Pre.

Sprint CEO Dan Hesse further said in a statement that “the total number of HTC EVO 4G devices sold on launch day was three times the number of Samsung Instinct and Palm Pre devices sold over their first three days on the market combined.”

In addition, the EVO, manufactured by the Taiwanese firm HTC Corp, has also been witnessing a much higher post-launched demand than other phones on the carrier. The notable demand for the EVO was evident from the queues at some Sprint stores when it launched the handset on June 4, resulting in the overloading of Sprint’s account-activation system and causing spot shortages.