iPhone 4 Black 16GB (Verizon)
Verizon’s last quarter iPhone sales have touch 4.2 million units this last quarter and according to the company that is more than double of what the carrier had sold the quarter before that. The holiday shopping season seems to have been very good for Big Red.
Out of all these iPhones, the carrier sold about 2.2 million 4G devices too. Verizo’s chieft financial officer Fran Shammo announced during the Citi Global Entertainment, Media, and Telecommunications Conference.
Verizon had stated at the beginning of last year that they are looking to sell over 11 million iPhones in 2011. As of December 21 Verizon had a backlog of only 120,000 devices. Thus when added to all the iPhones that were sold, Shammo said the company had come very close to achieving the goal that it had set for itself during January 2011.
Last year having been the first year of the iPhone on Verizon, Shammo mentioned how important the company thought it was to have the iPhone on their roster. This he stated as response to a question regarding the satisfaction level of the company with the Apple smartphones overall performance in the market. The device is apparently very popular with Verizon customers and it is also apparently getting back customers to had defected to AT&T during the period when Verizon did not have the iPhone on their roster.
Upon finishing his praise of the iPhone, he went on to talk about Android phones. Even though the iPhone has had a great holiday season, it is just another part of Verizon’s portfolio now. The biggest seller of them all seems to be Android phones, which the company says they have sold a large number of. More than all the iPhones they have sold. Comparing the two platforms is somewhat unfair though because the Android has several manufacturers producing devices with more handset variety. Apple is still jut one company with a single latest smartphone device each time.
The third quarter did not actually go too well for the Verizon iPhone. Sales actually dipped down and only about 2 million phones were sold. This dip was actually partly due to the rumors that were rampant at that time, talking about a possible imminent launch of the iPhone 5 next generation Apple smartphone device. Customers thus played the waiting game to trade in their older phones for the newest phone. However, the rumors finally dissipated and consumer patience wore thin to give the great holiday season to the iPhone.
The big change was when Verizon started selling the iPhone 4S. According to Shammo, that was the turning point for the quarter. The demand was so high that the company apparently ran out of units on the first day itself.
Shammo also commented on the newly introduced tiered data pricing on Verizon, claiming it was necessary due to increased LTE and video usage. The current market trend only shows the usage going up though, so the carriers had better find a way to make it less expensive for the consumer.
