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Verizon today became the first major U.S. iPhone carrier to report earnings for the third quarter of 2012, giving some insight into iPhone sales one week before Apple reports its numbers.
In a conference call following the earnings release, Verizon revealed that it activated 3.1 million iPhones during the quarter, representing approximately 46% of its total smartphone activations of 6.8 million. The iPhone activation number was up from 2.7 million in the previous quarter that saw Apple garnering a similar 45% share of Verizon's smartphone activations.
Addressing the iPhone 5, Verizon noted that 21% of its iPhone activations were for devices running on the carrier's LTE network, translating to about 650,000 iPhone 5 activations in the last few days of the quarter.
AT&T and Sprint will also be reporting their financial results next week, ahead of Apple's announcement and conference call following the close of trading on Thursday, October 25.
Top Rated Comments
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Given the number of smartphones that Verizon offers and how heavily they advertise Android devices, it's pretty amazing that nearly half their smartphone sales were iPhones.
And what does that really say about the SGIII? I constantly hear about how popular this phone is, but the iPhone seems to be killing it.
650k in 10 days...
I keep hearing that the GS3 is this great big seller and iphone 5 killer yet no one ever wants to talk about its specific activations.
that doesn't seem like a whole hell of a lot.
I had to reread this several times, they only sold 650,000 iPhone 5s.
Verizon sold 650k iPhone 5s. Under constrained supplies. Within the last 9 days of the quarter.
And you use the word ONLY?
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Unlike with AT&T, any Verizon customer who gets a 4G LTE phone either subsidized or un-subsidized will lose their unlimited data plan.
If anyone wins here, it will be Verizon by forcing off millions of its iPhone unlimited data customers to a tiered data plan. Combined with the higher efficiency of the 4G LTE spectrum and how 4G LTE chews through more data more quickly, this will be VERY lucrative for Verizon. 2GB will not be sufficient for an average user in 2012, the numbers of which we will know next year. In 2010, the average smartphone user was using 450MB/mo. In 2011, that number jumped to 1.4GB. In 2012, my educational guess is that it will easily exceed 2GB maybe even approaching 3GB.
The share everything plans help for people who use a relatively small amount of data on many devices. The break even point is reached fairly quickly though as you account for the fact that each phone is likely to chew through 2GB each month which means many families will have to get the 8GB family share plan.
Apple wins, Verizon wins, shareholders (me) win, customer (also me) loses
I am holding onto my iPhone 4S with unlimited data for dear life
My current family plan vs. a family share plan with 4gb of data (even this month with my iPhone 5 on LTE which has gone almost a full cycle, we are using just barely 3gb) is the exact same price. My mom has been hesitant to move to a smart phone because she wouldn't use enough data to justify the $30/month for the data plan, but now that it's only $10 more than a dumb phone for access, it will allow her to finally move without adding much to our plan.
Not to mention the jump from 4gb to 6gb of shared data is only $10, and now I can add an iPad for $10/month as well.
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Well, this makes sense. You have to buy TWO Verizon iPhones in order to get the data and voice to work at the same time. Also takes 2-3 iPhones to get the LTE Speed that you can get via AT&T.
I'm 90% sure this is just incorrectVerizon LTE is faster than AT&T LTE.
Also, I'd be willing to bet that 99.9% of the people on Verizon don't buy two phones to get data and voice to work at the same time, because we acknowledge that the few times we would ever use it (I use about 90 minutes of voice a month, and 99% of that time I'm connected to wifi anyway) are worth giving up in order to have more reliable service and more widespread LTE.
Guys,
Don't forget hundreds of thousands of people on Verizon who simply are NOT eligible for an upgrade; those who got the iPhone 4 when it was released in Feb 2011