AT&T Wireless in its quarterly results has revealed more than 6 million smartphone sales, 4.7 million of which belonged to Apple iPhone devices.
Officials also announced a net increase in the company’s customer base. AT&T Wireless added 678,000 customers in the quarter. Based on current numbers AT&T is now servicing 44.5 million customers, up 1.4 million from the previous quarter.
In another positive move AT&T turnover rates are down by $0.1 billion to $31.5 billion, although net profit did slip. Net profit was down from $6.8 billion in Q2 to $3.6 billion in Q3 thanks to a buy back of 101 million shareholder shares. AT&T Wireless spent $3.8 billion to buy back its own shares.
Net profit at AT&T Wireless was also hurt by the company’s 4G LTE network expansion which has come with tremendous expenses.
AT&T officials also announced a net increase to 7.4 million customers, a gain of nearly 200,000 TV subscribers and 613,000 Internet subscribers. The firm also announced revenue increases of 2 percent compared to its year-end period.
Based on Q3 numbers AT&T is experiencing its most aggressive growth period in four years.
With T-Mobile now pushing the iPhone line of devices and various potential mergers in the works AT&T Wireless will likely continue to experience increased competition.
Here is a video that highlighted AT&T ‘s Q3 2012 quarterly earnings:
AT&T continues to insist that it must charge increasing rates for mobile data in order to remain profitable, from my current view I would say the company is doing a fine job of turning a profit.