Verizon Wireless sells 2 million iPhone 4 handsets in Q3 2011
Verizon Wireless announced its Q3 2011 earnings on Friday and confirmed it sold 2 million iPhones last quarter and a total of 6.5 million total this year. This quarterly number still trails AT&T, which activated 2.7 million iPhone 4 handsets in Q3 2011. As its has reported in previous quarters, 20% of iPhone 4 sales are to new customers and 80% are renewals from existing Verizon Wireless customers.
This 2 million number is also down from previous quarters. In the first six weeks of sales at the beginning of the year, Verizon sold 2.2 million iPhone 4 handsets which was its best smartphone launch ever. Verizon also sold 2.3 million iPhones in Q2 2011. This slight decline to 2 million in Q3 may be the result of the iPhone 4S. Rather than purchase the iPhone 4, customers waited for the iPhone 4S.
Verizon also confirmed it has sold 6.5 million total iPhone handsets thus far this year which is about 11% of the total 55.97 million iPhone 4 handsets sold by Apple. In the same nine months, AT&T has sold 9.9 million iPhone handsets. None of these figures include the iPhone 4S, four million of which flew off the shelves in the first three days of sales. Verizon did not divulge iPhone 4S sales, but said demand was strong. It confirmed that its initial allocation ran out in the first 24 hours and the iPhone 4S is on backlog.
