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The iPhone has been good to AT&T, and the most recent quarter shows why. AT&T today posted their Q3 2009 financial results, announcing that they activated a record 3.2 million new iPhones in that quarter alone. The announcement follows on Apple’s own financial results that had the iPhone maker selling more iPhone this past quarter than ever before. What’s more, AT&T says that 40% of their subscribers came to the carrier for the iPhone.
Apple’s iPhone has been really (really) good to AT&T.
AT&T also managed to cut churn (ratio of new subscriber additions to customers leaving AT&T) to its a record low rate of 1.4%. At the same time, AT&T’s overall ARPU (average revenue per user) increased 3.8% compared to the same quarter last year, hitting $61.23. The all-important data ARPU increased 1.7% to reach $18.37.
Now chew on this. AT&T added 4.3 million devices to their post-paid network. The iPhone accounted for 3.2 million of those new devices – the iPhone comprised more than 74% of AT&T’s new device additions. AT&T must love the iPhone.
AT&T also highlighted its ongoing 3G network improvements. AT&T is expanding its 3G network with about 4,400 new 3G sites rolling out over 370 markets by year’s end. And, the carrier’s push to migrate 3G services to the 850Mhz spectrum is more than 90% complete and should be finalized by the end of 2009.
But, regardless of how much the iPhone may have helped boost AT&T’s bottom line, there’s no denying that the carrier’s 10% wireless revenue growth is impressive. AT&T made $12.4 billion, with $10.3 billion in costs. That’s a lot of cash.
It should be interesting to see how the end AT&T’s iPhone exclusivity affects future quarterly results.
[Via: AT&T]
About The Author
Will Park
Will hails from The City of Angels - Los Angeles, California. He spends his time playing with his numerous gadgets and looking forward to seeing what future holds for mobile technology. An avid promoter of a fully "digital" life, he promotes the widespread adoption of truly mobile, paper-less living. He dreams of the day when he can go completely digital. No more snail mail, paper receipts, bound books, notepads/spiral notebooks, credit cards, hard currency. He's a digital warrior - fighting for the converged life. He is an idealist and a realist - he has a perfect view of what the world should be but knows that the world is not perfect. Can we ever hope to see Will's dream become reality? We'll see...
