Fatuzzo Books Blog

Apple’s iPhone 4G has safely secured itself as the top-selling mobile phone in the United States and has positioned Apple as the third largest mobile phone brand in the US. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, these achievements came because Apple expanded iPhone service beyond AT&T through its new partnership with Verizon. Specifically, since February, Verizon customers have been able to buy the iPhone and keep Verizon service. This new partnership appears to have contributed significantly to Apple’s impressive second quarter gains in income and revenues – another winning move for Apple.

But what about Apple’s new partner Verizon? Verizon spent much of its time during the first days and weeks of its iPhone launch targeting current AT&T customers. But in the end, only 14 percent of Verizon’s early iPhone sales were the result of customers switching networks, according to an article in the Epoch Times. This fell short of expectations. Instead, the largest portion of sales was to current Verizon customers, who (perhaps) had been waiting for the carrier to launch its version of the iPhone, a move that had been rumored for at least the past two years. In spite of this, between February and the end of April more than 2.2 million “Verizon” iPhones were sold, according to numbers from research and measurement firm comScore. And Verizon executives now are touting the iPhone as the company’s most successful introduction of a new phone in the company’s history. So Verizon also appears to be an iPhone winner, at least for now.

However don’t discount AT&T. During this same time period the company won more new iPhone customers than Verizon. And in spite of loosing exclusive rights to the iPhone, the company achieved sales of 3.6 million iPhones (according to the New York Times). Therefore AT&T might be considered a bigger winner than Verizon. But will it last?

Which service provider will emerge as the long-term victor remains to be seen. But what is clear is that Apple is still in the driver’s seat, providing innovative new products and new choices for customers.