iPhone Sales Helped AT&T In Q4 2008

AT&T recently posted their fourth quarter 2008 earnings, and according to the numbers, the iPhone had a lot to do with their success. AT&T reported that they had activated 1.9 million iPhone's during the fourth quarter, down from the third quarter numbers of 2.4 million. The third quarter was the iPhone 3G's first quarter of availability. AT&T's wireless revenue now accounts for 41 percent of the companies total revenue. In the fourth quarter alone, revenue was up 2.4 percent even during this economic crisis which CEO Randall Stephenson largely attributes to the iPhone.

“The success of our iPhone 3G launch has driven wireless growth and helped redefine the wireless data space."

The iPhone has also helped increase total revenue from wireless contracts. The average revenue created from iPhone users is about 60 percent higher than regular AT&T customers. iPhone users must have felt they needed to justify the cost of the data plan by using it to its full extent because data use was up 51.2 percent year-to-year. Of all of those 1.9 million iPhone activations during the quarter, 40 percent were new AT&T customers. Customers tend to stick with AT&T longer when they own an iPhone. All of this data proves that AT&T is keeping the iPhone locked to their network for a reason. Any hope for a data plan price reduction in the near future probably just went out the window. [via Fortune]

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