AT&T adds 2.7M iPhones, 1.9M customers in Q1 2010
AT&T reported its first-quarter results on Wednesday, and Apple's exclusive carrier partner in the U.S. revealed that it activated 2.7 million iPhones, with more than a third of those customers new to AT&T.
With a total of net gain of 1.9 million wireless subscribers added to AT&T, that means that nearly half of the new customers to AT&T during the quarter came because of the iPhone. The first-quarter result also represents a decrease from 3.1 million iPhones activated during the previous, holiday quarter.
On Tuesday, Apple revealed that it sold 8.75 million iPhones during the same timeframe, which represented the company's largest quarter ever. That was even better than the holiday quarter, when the company shipped a then-record 8.7 million iPhones.
AT&T's reduction shows how important international growth has become for the iPhone platform. That was a point Apple executives made during Tuesday's earnings conference call, when Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook said that both additional carriers and existing partners were important to the company's record growth.
Cook failed, however, to reveal whether Apple intends to end its exclusive arrangement with AT&T in the U.S. He said though Apple has seen good results with multiple carrier options in other countries, the company is viewing the situation on a country-by-country level to conclude what is in its best interests.
AT&T's first quarter saw the wireless carrier earn $30.6 billion in consolidated revenues, up $78 million from the same period a year ago. The company brought in $0.42 diluted earnings per share, and $0.59 before a previously disclosed non-cash charge of $995 million from a change to taxes related to the Medicare Part D subsidy.
"We?re off to a great start to the year, and our fundamental outlook for the business continues to be quite positive," said Randall Stephenson, AT&T chairman and chief executive officer.
The company saw a 10.3 percent increase in wireless service revenues, and added 3.3 million 3G postpaid integrated wireless devices. AT&T now has 26.8 million 3G devices on its network, more than double its total from a year ago.
"AT&T continues to set the pace in mobile broadband, the industry?s number one growth driver, and our wireless business continues to perform at a high level, with improved margins, lower churn and overall revenues growing at a healthy clip," Stephenson said. "AT&T has outstanding mobile broadband capabilities today and a terrific technology path forward to lead the next wave of wireless innovation and growth. We?re investing and executing aggressively to deliver on that potential."
With a total of net gain of 1.9 million wireless subscribers added to AT&T, that means that nearly half of the new customers to AT&T during the quarter came because of the iPhone. The first-quarter result also represents a decrease from 3.1 million iPhones activated during the previous, holiday quarter.
On Tuesday, Apple revealed that it sold 8.75 million iPhones during the same timeframe, which represented the company's largest quarter ever. That was even better than the holiday quarter, when the company shipped a then-record 8.7 million iPhones.
AT&T's reduction shows how important international growth has become for the iPhone platform. That was a point Apple executives made during Tuesday's earnings conference call, when Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook said that both additional carriers and existing partners were important to the company's record growth.
Cook failed, however, to reveal whether Apple intends to end its exclusive arrangement with AT&T in the U.S. He said though Apple has seen good results with multiple carrier options in other countries, the company is viewing the situation on a country-by-country level to conclude what is in its best interests.
AT&T's first quarter saw the wireless carrier earn $30.6 billion in consolidated revenues, up $78 million from the same period a year ago. The company brought in $0.42 diluted earnings per share, and $0.59 before a previously disclosed non-cash charge of $995 million from a change to taxes related to the Medicare Part D subsidy.
"We?re off to a great start to the year, and our fundamental outlook for the business continues to be quite positive," said Randall Stephenson, AT&T chairman and chief executive officer.
The company saw a 10.3 percent increase in wireless service revenues, and added 3.3 million 3G postpaid integrated wireless devices. AT&T now has 26.8 million 3G devices on its network, more than double its total from a year ago.
"AT&T continues to set the pace in mobile broadband, the industry?s number one growth driver, and our wireless business continues to perform at a high level, with improved margins, lower churn and overall revenues growing at a healthy clip," Stephenson said. "AT&T has outstanding mobile broadband capabilities today and a terrific technology path forward to lead the next wave of wireless innovation and growth. We?re investing and executing aggressively to deliver on that potential."
Comments
As for "multiple carriers" in the US, I'm sure whenever verizon decide to be resonable Apple will be there.
I'm not holding my breath.
I wonder if this will be yet another quarter AT&T adds more than verizon?
Go, ATT! Now, surprise us with some innovative pricing arrangement for the 4th-G iPhone! Rethink Possible.....
I respect AT&T for working hard to improve their network, reliability, and coverage. iPhone and iPad have definitely been a catalyst for change at AT&T.
AT&T owes nearly all of their growth to the iPhone... I wonder how many will bite on the iPad data plan?
Why would someone get the 3G version, and not use the data plan as offered: i.e., use as/when needed?
If Apple does not diversify to different carriers with the 4G, I think it's pretty much over for the iPhone in terms of growth from switchers. That cow will have been milked dry. 3 years is enough. If they don't even go to the other GSM carrier, then really...what else is left to say at this point. This business model is not consumer friendly by a mile. And they will find themselves with less switchers to the iPhone once Apple finally decides to open the phone to other carriers the more people have invested themselves monetarily in applications for other platforms. Neither Android nor BB are sticking to one carrier, they are expanding aggressively to ALL, and in 3 out of 4, without having to compete with the big juggernaut. Google couldn't be happier in the long term if this Apple-AT&T racket continues.
Apple is the best thing that has happened to ATT in a long time. No wonder they were willing to deal with their iPad 3G subscription pricing and terms.
Go, ATT! Now, surprise us with some innovative pricing arrangement for the 4th-G iPhone! Rethink Possible.....
I think the only way AT&T could keep Apple from going to Verizon would be to come up with some innovative pricing as you are suggesting.
AT&T reported its first-quarter results on Wednesday, and Apple's exclusive carrier partner in the U.S. revealed that it activated 2.7 million iPhones, with more than a third of those customers new to AT&T.
With a total of net gain of 1.9 million wireless subscribers added to AT&T, that means that nearly half of the new customers to AT&T during the quarter came because of the iPhone.
Did I go to the wrong school? 1/3 of 2.7M is .9M, and half of 2.7M is 1.35M - neither of which is close to the 1/2 or 1/3 in the above statements. 1.9M is roughly 2/3 of 2.7M, so this story should have read "...more than two thirds of those customers new to AT&T." And THAT's a big deal!
Yawn.
If Apple does not diversify to different carriers with the 4G, I think it's pretty much over for the iPhone in terms of growth from switchers. That cow will have been milked dry. 3 years is enough.
Perhaps you missed the earnings call where Apple announced their biggest iPhone quarter?
With an iPhone that is almost a year old?
Against an onslaught of Android phones?
Neither Android nor BB are sticking to one carrier, they are expanding aggressively to ALL, and in 3 out of 4, without having to compete with the big juggernaut. Google couldn't be happier in the long term if this Apple-AT&T racket continues.
Really? AT&T just had another monster quarter. If they beat verizon again, that's over a year of outgrowing them in net adds. Some juggernaut
Perhaps you missed the earnings call where Apple announced their biggest iPhone quarter?
With an iPhone that is almost a year old?
Against an onslaught of Android phones?
Really? AT&T just had another monster quarter. If they beat verizon again, that's over a year of outgrowing them in net adds. Some juggernaut
Perhaps you missed the international growth, which far outpaced anything else--admittedly by Apple itself due to carrier openness.
Perhaps you also missed, apparently in plain sight, the pretty large drop in SWITCHERS to AT&T to get the iPhone. Perhaps you also missed the part where I said switchers to the iPhone from other carriers was decreasing, and as a consequence iPhone growth in the US will stunt, if the majority of people getting new iPhones are existing AT&T customers.
But perhaps you didn't miss that on purpose, though I suspect you did.
Yawn.
If Apple does not diversify to different carriers with the 4G, I think it's pretty much over for the iPhone in terms of growth from switchers. That cow will have been milked dry. 3 years is enough. If they don't even go to the other GSM carrier, then really...what else is left to say at this point. This business model is not consumer friendly by a mile. And they will find themselves with less switchers to the iPhone once Apple finally decides to open the phone to other carriers the more people have invested themselves monetarily in applications for other platforms. Neither Android nor BB are sticking to one carrier, they are expanding aggressively to ALL, and in 3 out of 4, without having to compete with the big juggernaut. Google couldn't be happier in the long term if this Apple-AT&T racket continues.
there are still 90 million cows across the pond to be milked
But one good point in your post is that this business model is not consumer friendly. Apple never tried to be consumer friendly when it comes to finances, but for UI and experience it stands to be very customer friendly. Apple is adamant on its strengths, pure form of capitalism. I think Jobs once said that they are not after marketshare coz they try/want to create new market and raise the standard of lifestyle of people.
Yawn.
If Apple does not diversify to different carriers with the 4G, I think it's pretty much over for the iPhone in terms of growth from switchers. That cow will have been milked dry. 3 years is enough. If they don't even go to the other GSM carrier, then really...what else is left to say at this point. This business model is not consumer friendly by a mile. And they will find themselves with less switchers to the iPhone once Apple finally decides to open the phone to other carriers the more people have invested themselves monetarily in applications for other platforms. Neither Android nor BB are sticking to one carrier, they are expanding aggressively to ALL, and in 3 out of 4, without having to compete with the big juggernaut. Google couldn't be happier in the long term if this Apple-AT&T racket continues.
Apple is (indubitably) doomed!?
It's nice that Apple can sell a bunch of phones internationally. It takes some pressure off of them to get a deal with Verizon. But at some point, they will have to get the iPhone onto Verizon's network. They're doing Google and RIM a huge favor by staying off of Verizon. They can't just concede a market that big forever.
Verizon will start rolling out LTE ("4G") this year. AT&T will start next year. For once, they'll both be on the same technology. My guess is that Apple will include LTE in addition to GSM as soon as possible and use that as the way to get to Verizon instead of shoehorning CDMA into the iPhone this year. Apple doesn't seem to be hurting by sticking with GSM right now, and the LTE path is a much cleaner technological one.
Did I go to the wrong school? 1/3 of 2.7M is .9M, and half of 2.7M is 1.35M - neither of which is close to the 1/2 or 1/3 in the above statements. 1.9M is roughly 2/3 of 2.7M, so this story should have read "...more than two thirds of those customers new to AT&T." And THAT's a big deal!
You misunderstand the numbers, though I admit they are confusing.
1.9 million (approx) were new customers. 0.9 million (approx) iPhones were sold to new subscribers. Using AI math close to 50% of new subscribers bought iPhones.
Interestingly, AT&T is slightly down in after-hours trading. Not quite the bump AAPL saw, but also not quite the results.
I respect AT&T for working hard to improve their network, reliability, and coverage. iPhone and iPad have definitely been a catalyst for change at AT&T.
Well.... think about it in this light.
Seeing quarter after quarter that the iPhone is a huge success for AT&T also comes with the following thoughts (to an investor anyway)...
What's gonna happen when Apple does open up the iPhone market in the US? I'm not saying it'll be tomorrow or maybe not even by the end of the year but the writing is about as bold as it can get, Apple will make the iPhone available to all US markets sooner rather than later and that can only mean ONE thing to AT&T.
Perhaps you missed the international growth, which far outpaced anything else--admittedly by Apple itself due to carrier openness.
No, but what commentators such as yourself often like to overlook is the US is not the rest of the world. Our model is different (and I will readily conceded, more screwed up). Carrier openness is definitely a factor, but not the sole factor. Here (even with Verizon, Sprint or T Mobile) smartphones typically require a data plan and 2 year contract and that's a huge commitment for most people. Frankly that's more of a barrier than AT&T vs. Verizon. Other than techie geeks, most people I know couldn't care less about the carrier. Indeed, if loyalty was such a lock carriers wouldn't be signing you up for two year contracts
If the US is starting resemble markets elsewhere, it's soley because of the success of the iPhone. Heck, blackberries on Verizon didn't even have wifi until the success of the iPhone forced Verizon to open up! I love how all the "pro verizon" people conveniently (and continually) forget the pre-iPhone verizon.
Perhaps you also missed, apparently in plain sight, the pretty large drop in SWITCHERS to AT&T to get the iPhone.
Less than four months before a new iPhone is released - this is a surprise? Really? I'm more shocked that Apple had their biggest iPhone quarter ever with the impending iPhone update!
Perhaps you also missed the part where I said switchers to the iPhone from other carriers was decreasing, and as a consequence iPhone growth in the US will stunt, if the majority of people getting new iPhones are existing AT&T customers.
Perhaps you are reading too much into one quarters numbers.
And I haven't seen concrete Verizon numbers to compare with AT&T's - but AT&T has bested them on new account additions for almost a year now. If they did it yet again this quarter, you are indeed chicken little.
But perhaps you didn't miss that on purpose, though I suspect you did.
Perhaps you are trying to be too clever for yourself. Actually being clever instead of trying to sound clever is always better
Interesting that all the other news organizations (e.g., CNN) are telling us how AT&T's growth has slowed way down. Is this an AI spin on things?
Their both down. It's probably the economy. And they are expected to be reporting about the same amount of adds:
http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/...-q1/2010-04-19
So much for "the network" being paramount
Did I go to the wrong school? 1/3 of 2.7M is .9M, and half of 2.7M is 1.35M - neither of which is close to the 1/2 or 1/3 in the above statements. 1.9M is roughly 2/3 of 2.7M, so this story should have read "...more than two thirds of those customers new to AT&T." And THAT's a big deal!
Ahhh, yeah you did. .9 mil is almost half of 1.9 mil. Its that easy.