The iPhone Accounted For 73% Of AT&T’s Smartphone Activation Last Quarter

The iPhone is dominating. And that’s not unsubstantiated flamebait. AT&T just released its quarterly financial statement, which reveals the wireless carrier activated 5.1M smartphones in the last three months. Out of those 5.1M, the iPhone accounted for 3.7M activations, resulting in a dominating 73% market share within AT&T. AT&T also notes that 22% of its iPhone sales were new activations.

Verizon revealed last week that it sold 2.7M iPhones during the second quarter, accounting for 45% of the company’s smartphone sales (note: sales, rather than activations like with AT&T’s numbers). This is down from 3.2M from the first quarter. The iPhone 4S might be aging, but consumers are still buying it en mass.

From AT&T’s 2012 Q2 financial statement,

Strong Smartphone Sales Continue. AT&T sold 5.1 million smartphones in the second quarter. Smartphones represented 77 percent of postpaid device sales. At the end of the quarter, 61.9 percent, or 43.1 million, of AT&T’s postpaid subscribers had smartphones, up from 49.9 percent, or 34.1 million, a year earlier. AT&T’s ARPU for smartphones is twice that of non-smartphone subscribers, and about 88 percent of smartphone subscribers are on FamilyTalk(R) or business plans. Churn levels for these subscribers are significantly lower than for other postpaid subscribers. More than one-third of AT&T’s postpaid smartphone customers use a 4G-capable device.

Android, iPhone and Windows device sales were supported by AT&T’s 4G network. Only AT&T’s 4G network lets iPhone 4S download three-times faster than any other U.S. carrier’s network. In the quarter, the company activated 3.7 million iPhones, with 22 percent new to AT&T.

Apple fanboys will likely get more ammo later today when Apple releases its quarterly statement as well. Even though a new Android flagship device is seemingly released every other week, consumers are still choosing the iPhone and new one is set to be released in the coming months. The smartphone wars are heating up.