Given it's 50 minutes, the numbers don't have to be incredibl good to make a really impressive-sounding rate.

Let's say they had a quarter million units for sale for their first run (given their Nex7 sales, totally reasonable). That means they're selling ~80 phones a second.

Now did Apple sell more? Sure. Does that mean these numbers are bad, even in a relative sense given the obscurity of the Nexus brand, the troubles during launch and the location of sale?

No. Supply or Demand, this is good for Nexus.