Arik Hesseldahl

Recent Posts by Arik Hesseldahl

AT&T Activated 4.3 Million iPhones in Q1

AT&T’s iPhone activations are standing up well, even though Apple now sells the phone through more U.S. carriers than ever before. During an earnings call with analysts, AT&T CEO Ralph de la Vega said AT&T had activated 4.3 million iPhones during the quarter, and of those, 21 percent were sold to customers new to AT&T. “We did this while facing more iPhone competition than ever before,” de la Vega said on the call.

Sales of iPhones led the overall increase in smartphones running on AT&T’s network to 41.2 million, up by nearly 10 million over the year-ago quarter. Wireless-data revenue increased to $6.1 billion in the quarter, up from $5.1 billion a year ago; the average revenue per user (ARPU), a key metric indicating how heavily smartphone owners use their devices, rose 15 percent.

De la Vega said AT&T is on track to report $24 billion in wireless revenue this year. “Strong smartphone sales drive strong data sales, and data drives this business,” he said.

It’s also a profitable business. De la Vega said that wireless margins, on an EBITDA basis, were 41.6 percent, up from 39 percent a year ago. Wireless operating income was $4.4 billion, up 11.3 percent year over year.

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First the NSA came for, well, jeez pretty much everybody’s data at this point, and I said nothing because wait how does this joke work

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