07/23/2008, 8:35am, EDT
Wednesday, July 23rdAT&T: iPhone 3G sales "nearly double" original
AT&T has sold almost twice as many iPhone 3G units on launch as it did a year ago, the company has revealed today along with its results for the past quarter. The wireless carrier claims that the new handset produced "nearly double" the same amount of sales in 12 days of sales as its predecessor did for its own launch. The company also notes that the number of smartphone owners on its network has more than doubled year-over-year, with the number of customers jumping from eight percent at the end of June 2007 to 18 percent by June 2008.
Numbers for either American iPhone launch have never formally been published by either Apple or AT&T, although observers have generally agreed that Apple sold approximately 270,000 iPhones for the device's opening weekend, suggesting that over 500,000 iPhone 3G units have been sold in the US so far.
AT&T also acknowledges that the shortage of original iPhones in the spring may have affected its customer additions and sales for the period. The provider had a net addition of about 1.3 million new customers to push its user base to about 72.9 million subscribers, dismissing Verizon's claims of a lead with 68.7 million; however, the company says only 894,000 of these were subscriptions rather than prepaid and says the figure came "despite" Apple running out of iPhone stock prematurely during the quarter.
AT&T's total additions were lower than last year with 123,000 fewer customers being added in the quarter a year ago, but up 38,000 over results from the winter.
The firm also says it has reduced churn (the replacement of old customers with new) to an all-time low of 1.1 percent and is still seeing strong growth in its U-Verse high-speed Internet and IPTV services; the company's total revenue was up 4.7 percent year-over-year to $30.9 billion, while practical operating income was up 35 percent to $6.6 billion.
Filed under: iPhone
Other story tags: AT&T, iPhone 3G, U-verse
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still though
You would think with all that , they would give some concessions to it's current customers who are not qualified for upgrades.
Had they done so , they could have added even more untis and renewed contracts.
Then again, Apple grossly misrepresented the cost of the phone.
needs clarification
The statement "the company says only 894,000 of these were subscriptions" needs a little clarification. My assumption is that this is referring to the 1.3 million NEW customers and not the entire 72.9 million customer base, but this is less than clear. If AT&T is claiming 72.9 million customers and only 894,000 of them are subscriptions this would represent a less than stable or clearly-defined customer base.
sense of entitlement
" You would think with all that , they would give some concessions to it's current customers who are not qualified for upgrades... Then again, Apple grossly misrepresented the cost of the phone."
"grossly misrepresented"? please. give me a break!
I really don't understand why it's so difficult for people such as yourself to understand how cellphone sales work.
The ONLY people that are ineligible for the $199 iPhone 3G subsidized pricing are those who have already received a heavily discounted phone on their current contract.
Do you think these upfront phone subsidies are free??? NO! You receive a large discount on a cellphone when you (re)sign a new service contract. In return for the carrier discounting the phone, you agree to a x-month service contract. This is how the system has always worked since the beginning of cellphones.
So why should someone who already got a big discount on a new phone and has yet to complete their contract get ANOTHER discounted phone? And most carriers (including AT&T) don't even make you wait till the end of the contract. You can usually become eligible for a discounted phone upgrade after the first 6-10 months of your contract, depending on how much you spend each month.
The original iPhone was the exception to the rule because it was sold UNSUBSIDIZED at full retail price. Buyers were NOT given any type of discount. Because of this, anyone could get the $399 price. But as i said, just about everyone can get the $199 price of the new iPhone -- the only exception being people who ALREADY GOT a discounted phone recently.
My god, the sense of entitlement some people have....
You said it...
"My god, the sense of entitlement some people have...."
Ain't that the truth.