Estimated sales figures for the month of October suggest that Apple could be on track to please Wall Street expectations and sell 2.9 million Macs during the company’s first fiscal quarter of 2010 which includes the lucrative month of December.

The data released from NPD group points towards Apple selling between 2.8 and 2.9 million Macs with the Wall Street consensus sitting at 2.85 million. If those estimates come true it would put overall Mac sales up 14 percent year-over-year. NPD data for October was up 7 percent year-over-year.

The release of the NPD data was also accompanied on Wednesday by a report from Gene Munster, analyst for Piper Jaffray. The analyst warned investors that 50 percent of Mac sales in Q1 take place in December, suggesting that it was too early to tell how many Macs Apple might sell.

The analyst also noted that new desktop Macs released in October would benefit sales during the quarter, “NPD data indicates that desktop Macs were up 45% y/y in the month of Oct. In other words, the headwind that existed into the Sept. quarter due to aging Mac desktops has now turned into a tailwind for Mac units in the Dec. quarter.”

On the subject of iPod sales Munster noted that sales looked to be down 11 percent year-over-year but reassured investors that the majority of iPod sales during fiscal Q1 occur in December. “In other words,” Munster added, “we believe the actual numbers for iPod will be slightly better than NPD would suggest.” NPD numbers suggest iPod sales for the quarter of 19 to 20 million.