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A Third of IPhone Users Switched Carriers As Apple Leads Smartphone Sales

6:57 am, October 6th, 2008, Ed Sutherland

Nearly a third of iPhone users switched carriers in order to buy the Apple touch-screen phone, researchers said Monday. The news comes as the iPhone leads smartphone sales between July and August.

Some thirty percent of U.S. smartphone buyers switched carriers to AT&T in order to purchase an iPhone in that period, market research firm NPD Group announced.

That compares to the 24 percent industry average for smartphone buyers.

Almost half (47 percent) of those new AT&T customers came at the expense of Verizon Wireless. Twenty-four percent of iPhone users were T-Mobile subscribers, while 19 percent switched from Sprint, according to the report.

T-Mobile had already lost subscribers to the iPhone, NPD analyst Ross Rubin told Cult of Mac.

“Sprint may have been helped by the Samsung Instinct, which has been marketed heavily compared to other touchscreen devices,” he wrote in an e-mail. Rubin also said Sprint has boosted its customer service capabilities after losing subscribers in 2007.

Apple was the best-selling smartphone between July and August, its marketshare jumping to 17 percent from 11 percent. RIM’s Blackberry Curve and Blackberry Pearl followed at the second and third spot with Palm’s Centro rounding out the top-four.

Whether Apple can retain the top position depends on how well the T-Mobile G1 handset is received and what effect iPhone connectivity problems had, the NPD analyst said.

The launch of Apple’s lower-priced iPhone 3G help cut prices for smartphones across the board by 26 percent. Smartphones were priced at $174 compared to $236 a year ago, according to NPD.

Posted by Ed Sutherland in Apple, News, iPhone | Comment on this article

About the author

Ed Sutherland

Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.

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3 comments

    That T-Mobile statistic should be reworded.

    Not 24% of T-Mobile subscribers jumped ship, 24% of people who jumped ship were T-Mobile subscribers.

    Sorry to be so picky.

    Rachel, on October 6th, 2008 at 7:22 am

    I switched… But I won’t be staying. AT&T’s service & pricing is pretty bad. As soon as my two-year is up, it’s likely right back to Sprint.

    Patrick, on October 6th, 2008 at 9:08 pm

    This article fails to mention how many people use the Iphone on Tmobile. I’ve unlocked 10 2G iphone so far with all of them going for use on the t-mobile network, users claim they hate the att pricing but love the iphone.

    HS, on October 7th, 2008 at 10:26 am