AT&T posted its first-quarter earnings this morning, and the U.S. carrier saw a 33% increase in iPhone activations during the first quarter of 2011. A grand total of 3.6 million iPhones were activated on AT&T, helping to give the carrier a 10.2% overall increase in wireless revenue.
Since the iPhone was made available on Verizon, a drop in iPhone sales on AT&T has been expected. Instead, AT&T announced that this past quarter was its best first-quarter earnings ever. Looks like the Verizon iPhone isn’t really enticing customers away from AT&T…
A few points from AT&T’s press release,
- Best-ever first-quarter smartphone sales of more than 5.5Â million
- iPhone activations increased nearly 1Â million year over year to 3.6Â million, with 23Â percent of subscribers new to AT&T; iPhone subscriber churn unchanged year over year
Smartphone Sales Remain Strong. AT&T had another strong quarter of smartphone sales. More than 5.5 million smartphones were sold in the first quarter, the third-highest quarter ever and an increase of more than 60 percent year over year. During the quarter, 3.6 million iPhones were activated. Approximately 65 percent of postpaid sales were smartphones.
It’s interesting to see how well AT&T is doing in iPhone sales against Verizon. 23% of iPhone sales this past quarter were from new AT&T customers. The thought was that many people would jump ship and move to Verizon when the iPhone was made available, but it appears that most people are happy with the service AT&T provides.
Although Verizon’s iPhone sales have not been released, the numbers are supposed to be lower than expected.
Why do you think AT&T is doing so well in iPhone sales? Did you recently switch to AT&T or renew your contract? Will you be leaving AT&T for Verizon?