Sprint sold best-ever 2.2M iPhones in holiday quarter, 38% to new customers
Sprint on Thursday announced its earnings for the fourth quarter of 2012, revealing it sold a best-ever 2.2 million iPhones, bringing its total 2012 sales to 6.6 million.
Of the 2.2 million iPhones sold in the December quarter, 38 percent of those were to new customers. And 40 percent of the 6.6 million iPhones sold in all of 2012 were to customers new to the carrier.
As of the fourth quarter, Sprint had sold more than 4 million 4G LTE smartphones, including Apple's iPhone 5, which debuted in September.
Sprint sold a total of nearly 20 million smartphones in 2012. In the fourth quarter, 89 percent of postpaid handset sales were smartphones.
Sprint's high-speed 4G LTE network, compatible with both the iPhone 5 and Apple's latest iPads, is now available in a total of 58 cities. The carrier expects to expand to nearly 170 more in the coming months, and construction has started in more than 450 cities.
For the quarter, Sprint reported a net loss of $1.3 billion. Dan Hesse, the company's chief executive, attributed part of that loss to subsidies associated with Apple's iPhone, which he said is one of the company's "key investments."
The 2.2 million iPhones sold by Sprint are an increase from the 1.5 million the carrier had activated over the last three consecutive quarters. The carrier had surpassed 1 million LTE smartphones just before the launch of the iPhone 5.
Of the 2.2 million iPhones sold in the December quarter, 38 percent of those were to new customers. And 40 percent of the 6.6 million iPhones sold in all of 2012 were to customers new to the carrier.
As of the fourth quarter, Sprint had sold more than 4 million 4G LTE smartphones, including Apple's iPhone 5, which debuted in September.
Sprint sold a total of nearly 20 million smartphones in 2012. In the fourth quarter, 89 percent of postpaid handset sales were smartphones.
Sprint's high-speed 4G LTE network, compatible with both the iPhone 5 and Apple's latest iPads, is now available in a total of 58 cities. The carrier expects to expand to nearly 170 more in the coming months, and construction has started in more than 450 cities.
For the quarter, Sprint reported a net loss of $1.3 billion. Dan Hesse, the company's chief executive, attributed part of that loss to subsidies associated with Apple's iPhone, which he said is one of the company's "key investments."
The 2.2 million iPhones sold by Sprint are an increase from the 1.5 million the carrier had activated over the last three consecutive quarters. The carrier had surpassed 1 million LTE smartphones just before the launch of the iPhone 5.
Comments
Still, another 2.2M iPhones can only be a good thing.
True, but the AT&T and Verizon numbers for iPhones sold were nothing to sneeze at, either.
What is unusual, is reporting sales instead of activations, like Verizon and AT&T always do.
(There are usually at least 10% more activations than sales, due to used phones being reactivated by their new owners. Thus, reporting activations usually boosts the number that reporters will print -- and mistakenly use in percentage calculations.)
Sprint, being fairly new to the iPhone, wouldn't have as many used devices.
Reporting sales instead might mean that activations were less than sales during that period. This could happen if enough sales were presents that didn't get activated until just after the end of the reporting period.
Nothing wrong with that, of course. It can be more useful to see actual sales reported.
Well since only Apple reports actual sales, you can only rely in Apple's numbers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KDarling
What is unusual, is reporting sales instead of activations, like Verizon and AT&T always do.
(There are usually at least 10% more activations than sales, due to used phones being reactivated by their new owners. Thus, reporting activations usually boosts the number that reporters will print -- and mistakenly use in percentage calculations.)
Sprint, being fairly new to the iPhone, wouldn't have as many used devices.
Reporting sales instead might mean that activations were less than sales during that period. This could happen if enough sales were presents that didn't get activated until just after the end of the reporting period.
Nothing wrong with that, of course. It can be more useful to see actual sales reported.
We know from court filings that sales have usually been higher than total activations.
That's the question that has Wall Street worried. What markets are left? The TV market? I have my doubts that they can disrupt it.
Why does only Apple have to reinvent markets? They can increment its current product line and still sell record yoy iOS devices.
What's the last market Sammy or Amazon or Google reinvented?
Let's work this through.
Apple sold 2.2 M iPhone 5s just in the 4th quarter. They also sold some in the third quarter, so the number of iPhone 5s sold is somewhat greater than 2.2 M (I didn't check to see how many they sold in the previous quarter). Yet "as of the fourth quarter", which presumably means that they're including previous quarters, as well, they sold 4 M LTE phones all together.
So the iPhone 5 made up more than 50% of ALL LTE phones sold by Sprint. Add that to the huge percentages of AT&T and Verizon phones sold and it's pretty impressive.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dasanman69
That's the question that has Wall Street worried. What markets are left? The TV market? I have my doubts that they can disrupt it.
Really? What would you not have doubts about?
Quote:
Originally Posted by jungmark
What's the last market Sammy or Amazon or Google reinvented?
Can I answer that, can I answer that, please?
Quote:
Originally Posted by jragosta
Let's work this through.
Apple sold 2.2 M iPhone 5s just in the 4th quarter. They also sold some in the third quarter, so the number of iPhone 5s sold is somewhat greater than 2.2 M (I didn't check to see how many they sold in the previous quarter). Yet "as of the fourth quarter", which presumably means that they're including previous quarters, as well, they sold 4 M LTE phones all together.
So the iPhone 5 made up more than 50% of ALL LTE phones sold by Sprint. Add that to the huge percentages of AT&T and Verizon phones sold and it's pretty impressive.
You're assuming every iphone sold was a 5, but they sell the 4/4S too.
I wouldn't doubt that half of those iphones sold were the older 4/4S because those are the only models available on Sprint's prepaid.
How the hell is this an "Android beats iPhone in sales" situation?!?!?! WTF am I missing?
Quote:
Originally Posted by poke
We know from court filings that sales have usually been higher than total activations.
...higher than the activations reported by only the big three, ATT, Verizon and Sprint.
There's pieces of data missing. Many of the "sales" that Apple reports are to resellers who may (and probably do) have product sitting on shelves or in warehouses and not yet sold to an end-user. Some iPhones sold to an end-user were activated with a carrier other than the big three. It's going to be difficult to use that chart as proof-positive that "sales have usually been higher than total activations" when not all activations are included, nor all all sales reported by Apple sell-thru. And too not all "activations" reported by even the big three are actually the sale of a new phone.
I've always thought it odd that Verizon and ATT report phone activations but not sales of new phones. No idea why really.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 65C816
Someone help me understand the numbers. AT&T sold 80% iphones. Verizon sold 60% or so iPhones. Sprint is selling 38% iPhones. TMobile selling 0% iPhones (only talking about what these companies sell, not off contract/ebay/etc phones).
How the hell is this an "Android beats iPhone in sales" situation?!?!?! WTF am I missing?
The numbers you're reading aren't "new phone sales" for one thing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jragosta
Let's work this through.
Apple sold 2.2 M iPhone 5s just in the 4th quarter. They also sold some in the third quarter, so the number of iPhone 5s sold is somewhat greater than 2.2 M (I didn't check to see how many they sold in the previous quarter). Yet "as of the fourth quarter", which presumably means that they're including previous quarters, as well, they sold 4 M LTE phones all together.
So the iPhone 5 made up more than 50% of ALL LTE phones sold by Sprint. Add that to the huge percentages of AT&T and Verizon phones sold and it's pretty impressive.
The report doesn't say the 2.2M iPhones sold were all 4G LTE version, aka iPhone 5's. There's some detail lacking, making it near impossible to get a picture of how many were older models compared to Apple's most recent and thus whether the majority of 4G LTE phones sold came from Apple.
EDIT: I see someone else just mentioned that too.
They haven't and I was just responding to the OP. I personally feel that refreshing their current line up is plenty but there are many wringing their hands waiting for the next kinda 'new' thing for Apple to 'invent'.
Well I didn't have doubts that Apple could make a much better smartphone than what already existed, and it really wasn't too hard to make a better tablet than the pitiful selection that was available. I also didn't doubt that they'd have a monster Q4.