AT&T activates 1M iPhone 4S

For a device that was supposed to be such a disaster, iPhone 4S has been a huge success since its launch. AT&T has had the opportunity to service the iPhone since its first generation was introduced a few years ago. These days, AT&T has to compete with Verizon and Sprint. While it has activated over 1M iPhone 4S units already, AT&T’s recent results are a mixed bag. AT&T activated only 2.7 million iPhones in the third quarter of 2011. About 319k new customers came on-board, which is half what the company got last year.

We saw iPhone churn decrease, a tremendous vote of confidence in a very competitive environment…. I think and believe that our results speak for themselves. These results speak volumes about our wireless business. New customers are choosing AT&T and existing ones continue to stay with us,

explained AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega. To be fair, Apple did launch iPhone 4S a bit later than we all expected, which can explain the disappointing numbers AT&T has posted. With iPhone 3GS now being offered for free and iPhone 4 very affordable, the company has high hopes for Q4.

AT&T has come a long way since the early days of iPhone. In those days, many of us were not so impressed with AT&T’s quality of service. That’s not perfect yet. But it has improved enough for the company to hold on to its customers. Considering that the wireless industry is so saturated, these carriers will have a rough time growing at the rate they were in the past.