entertainments: Verizon activated 3.9 million iPhones in Q3 2013, more than all other smartphones on the network combined

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Verizon activated 3.9 million iPhones in Q3 2013, more than all other smartphones on the network combined

Verizon reports iPhone activations up 26 percent year-over-year

More people on Verizon's network want iPhones. That's the message from the company during its third-quarter earnings conference call this morning. Verizon CFO Fran Shammo reported that his company's customers activated 7.6 million new smartphones during the quarter. Of those, 51 percent - more than half - were iPhone activations.

That's 3.9 million new iPhone activations on Verizon for the third quarter of 2013 - an almost 26 percent year over year increase than the same quarter last year, when Verizon reported that 46 percent of new smartphone activations were iPhones. It's also higher than the previous quarter, when Verizon reported that 43 percent of new smartphone activations were iPhones.

Verizon noted that they exited September with constrained supplies of the iPhone - they didn't note which model, but it's safe to assume that they're referring to the iPhone 5s. Both the iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s were released in September, and Verizon faces the same inventory issues that other vendors do.

Obviously Verizon is only one data point to judge how well the iPhone is doing, but it's an important one - they're the largest U.S. carrier and a good bellwether of industry trends. We should have a better idea of the iPhone's overall performance when Apple reports its quarterly earnings on October 28th.