Strong iPhone 5 sales revealed in Verizon’s Q3 2012 earnings disclosures

Verizon on Thursday revealed its official numbers for the third quarter of the year. According to the press release, embedded at the end of this article, Verizon is reporting its “third consecutive quarter of double-digit earnings growth, continued strong cash flow.”

Verizon’s wireless business played a major role in this growth, with smartphone sales being an important part of the mobile business. The iPhone dominated the Verizon smartphone landscape, and the iPhone 5, launched towards the end of the period, saw quite significant sales for the carrier.
Overall, Verizon saw a 16% increase in quarterly profits compared to last year: $1.59 billion or $0.54 per share for Q3 2012 compared to $1.37 or $0.49 per share in Q3 2011. Revenue was also up to $29.01 billion from $27.91 billion in the previous year.
Wireless service revenue accounted for $16.2 billion of Verizon’s total revenue, a 7.5% increase compared to the same period last year.
The mobile operator showed an impressive increase in net new subscribers additions: 1.8 million in Q3, almost one million more than during the same time last year. Of those 1.8 million new additions, 1.5 million were postpaid customers. Verizon now has 95.9 million retail connection, a 5.7% growth compared to last year, and of those, 34.8 million are postpaid accounts, a 1% increased compared to the same time last year.
Of the total number of Verizon subscribers, 53% own a smartphone compared to 50% at the end of Q2 2012.
In its official press release, Verizon did not identify smartphone sales by OEM, but it did mention that it launched several LTE devices during Q3, such as “the DROID Incredible 4G LTE by HTC, Samsung Galaxy S III, Pantech Marauder, Intuition by LG, Samsung Galaxy Stellar, DROID RAZR M by Motorola, Apple iPhone 5; and one 4G LTE tablet, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2.”

However, during its earnings call that followed, the company revealed that it has sold 6.8 million smartphones during the period, 46% of those being iPhones, or 3.1 million units. Of those 3.1 million iPhones, only 21% were iPhones “running on the carrier’s LTE network.” Since the iPhone 5 – that was released on September 21 in the U.S. with three carriers, Verizon included – is the only iPhone model to offer LTE support, it means Verizon sold around 650,000 iPhone 5 units in less than ten days.
Sales for flagship Android smarpthones, such as the Galaxy S3, have not been highlighted by Verizon.
Why is the iPhone 5 sales number important? Because, whether you like it or not, the Android vs iPhone sales comparisons will continue to exist as long as Google and Apple continue to be the main players in the smartphone business. And while Google is winning the market share battle, Apple is winning the profits battle, although Samsung is definitely putting up a great fight.  However, no single Android device can match the iPhone when it comes to sales. And the iPhone 5 will probably become the best-sold smartphone out there in the coming months. In fact, the next quarter will be even more interesting for the mobile environment that we happen to closely follow, as it’s the Christmas quarter.
AT&T and Sprint are yet to report their numbers for Q3 2012 and we’re certainly interesting to hear more details from these carriers as well.

SOURCES MacRumors

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