AT&T just announced its third quarter numbers, and the original iPhone carrier showed significant iPhone gains over the year-ago quarter. AT&T recorded 4.7 million iPhone activations and 6.1 million overall smartphone activations, making iPhone around 77 percent of total smartphone sales.
AT&T noted the vast majority of third-quarter iPhone sales went to existing customers to satisfy pent-up demand, so not as many new customers signed up (151,000) as would have otherwise.
AT&T activated 2.7 million iPhone in the year-ago third quarter, making this quarter an increase of 2 million iPhones. AT&T now has 44.5 million smartphones on its network—the vast majority of which are iPhones.
Updated: AT&T hinted that it sold 1.3M iPhone 5s during the quarter by mentioning it had doubled Verizon’s iPhone 5 total during the 9am conference call.
Also, AT&T’s Mobile Share plans were only available for five weeks and nearly 2 million customers added in that time. AT&T blocks FaceTime over cellular if you do not sign up for its more expensive Mobile Share plans.
- Verizon sold 3.1M iPhones in Q3, 21% were iPhone 5
