How well did the expansion to two U.S. carriers work for iPhone sales? Thursday, Verizon Wireless reported activating 2.2 million iPhone 4 handsets during just part of the fiscal first quarter of 2011. In February, Apple expanded its U.S. iPhone carrier partnership to Verizon. The news comes just a day after AT&T announced 3.6 million iPhone activations during the three month period, bringing Apple’s estimated U.S. total iPhone sales for the first quarter to 5.8 million iPhones.
Wednesday, Apple reported U.S. iPhone sales rose 155 percent during the last three months, just part of the the backdrop to a $5.99 billion quarterly profit Wall Street observers described as “monster” and “magical.”
Although Apple’s John Cook reported the Cupertino, Calif. based company sold 18.65 million iPhones globally, little word escaped about the firm’s plans to introduce a 4G (or LTE) handset. Replying to analyst questions, Cook implied the timing is not right, saying current 4G chips would “force a lot of design compromises with the handset, and some of those we are just not willing to make.”
Morgan Stanley’s Katy Huberty said Apple’s signals of no LTE phone in 2011 could worry investors.
Verizon Wireless, however, announced it sold a half-million 4G devices during the previous quarter, 260,000 of those being the HTC Thunderbolt.
