Last Year’s iPhone Still Racking Up Sales

The market still loves last year’s iPhone.

Despite a later-than-usual refresh, the device continues to sell well, as recent numbers from carrier partners AT&T and Verizon show.

Reporting earnings for its June quarter last Thursday, AT&T said it activated 3.6 million iPhones, more than the 3.2 million it activated during the same period last year. Meanwhile, Verizon activated 2.3 million in its second quarter. Together, the two carriers activated 11.7 million in the first half of 2011, which is just 3.5 million shy of AT&T’s total iPhone activations for all of 2010.

Not bad for a smartphone that’s been on the market for a year now, a lifetime in the industry (side note: The iPhone 3GS is still pulling in decent sales at AT&T and it’s two years old). According to Morgan Keegan analyst Tavis McCourt, iPhone sell-through was 118 percent year over year this quarter in the States and abroad as well. And with the next iteration of the device expected this fall, sales will likely surge even more.

“The iPhone is broadly gaining share in a rather dramatic fashion,” says McCourt. “This is a product that is 12 months old. Pretty impressive.”

But hardly surprising. As the chart below demonstrates, the iPhone’s sales trend since it first debuted in 2007 has been quite dramatic — from 11.6 million in fiscal 2008 to 55.2 million in the first nine months of fiscal 2011.