AT&T Winning Smart Phone Battle With Verizon

AT&T Wednesday deemed Apple’s iPhone 3G a “success,” reporting adding 1.9 million of Apple’s smart phones before the end of 2008. The news comes as the exclusive U.S. iPhone carrier appears to have sold double the Blackberry handsets of rival Verizon Wireless.

The carrier said it had activated 4.3 million iPhone 3Gs since the handset’s launch.

Despite being a $450 million drag on AT&T earnings, the carrier announced new iPhone subscribers helped it post a 2.4 percent revenue increase for the quarter, reports said.

Although the carrier’s net profit fell to $2.4 billion in 2008 from $3.1 billion in 2007, total revenue rose to $31.1 billion for the last quarter of 2008, according to AT&T.

The company told reporters iPhone customers generate 60 percent higher average revenue per subscriber.

The carrier said the number of smartphone subscribers doubled from the previous year, helping a 51 percent increase in lucrative data plans.

While the fourth quarter’s 1.9 million iPhone subscriptions do not match the 2.4 million customers added when the iPhone 3G launched in the summer of 2008, it was evidently enough to surpass the Blackberry Storm offered through Verizon Wireless.

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Wednesday, Verizon Wireless told Computerworld it sold 1 million of the Storm handsets since its release. The official sales number followed a Wall Street Journal report describing the Storm’s introduction as a “bumpy start.”

The carrier said its total revenue rose 4.6 percent for the quarter, compared to a year ago.

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