Neil Hughes
More than half of all smartphone activations in the second quarter at Verizon, the largest wireless provider in the U.S., were accounted for by Apple's iPhone, the carrier announced in its earnings on Thursday.
Verizon activated a total of 7.5 million smartphones in the quarter, with about 27 percent of those new to the carrier. During a conference call with investors and members of the media, Verizon Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo revealed that 3.8 million of those smartphones were Apple's iPhone.
In comparison, Verizon activated just 2.7 million iPhones in the same quarter a year ago. That means iPhone activations grew 41 percent year over year at Verizon.
The numbers also show that Apple's share of Verizon's smartphone activations continues to grow. A year ago, the iPhone accounted for less than half of all Verizon activations, as the carrier saw 2.9 million Android-based devices added to its network.
Apple also managed to maintain more than half of all smartphones activated at Verizon during the quarter despite the fact that Samsung launched its latest flagship handset, the Galaxy S4. Verizon did not provide a breakdown of exactly how many of the remaining 3.7 million smartphones were Android devices.
Verizon also didn't say how many of the iPhones activated last quarter were Apple's latest iPhone 5 versus the legacy iPhone 4S and iPhone 4. But the carrier did disclose that it activated 6.4 million 4G LTE devices during the quarter, including Apple's latest iPhone and iPad models.
For the quarter, Verizon's wireless business saw revenues grow 7.5 percent year over year to $20 billion. Total net retail connections were up by 1 million.
"Verizon’s consistent strategic investments in wireless, FIOS and global networks drove strong financial performance in the first half of 2013,†said Verizon Chairman and CEO Lowell McAdam. "Having posted double-digit earnings growth in five of the last six quarters, we are focused on continuing to provide the best portfolio of products on the most reliable networks; capturing incremental revenue growth in broadband, video and cloud services; and sustaining our earnings and cash-flow momentum."
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52 Comments
Lets see, even though activations grew 41% YOY the analysts will focus on the drop from last quarter. When it comes to Apple seasonality never seems to matter.
And get ready for the lower cost iPhone, 4S at $0, 5 at $99, and the 5S launch. In addition, the repeat purchases from the initial launch of the iPhone on Verizon I see a real chance for Apple's share at Verizon to hit 60% in next 6 months
I wonder how they count those 'activations' if you activate a phone, return it, and activate a second phone.
And just wait until iOS 7 drops, plus all the new hardware coming out in the fall, like new iPhone, new iPads, etc. I think that a lot of people that have been under contract with a crappy Android phone are eventually going to want to upgrade to something better, so that they can get out of the gutter, when their contracts expire. These VeriZn iPhone numbers are pretty impressive.
So iPhone growth at big red amongst rumors that they aren't selling as many as expected/committed? Either the talk of Verizon potentially needing to pay Apple $14 million is true and it motivated them to start actually pushing the iPhone, or they just decided to start pushing it, or customers are finally realizing that they want the iPhone and aren't accepting and android as just like an iPhone.