Verizon activates 2.3 million iPhone 4s in June quarter

Verizon Wireless just announced their second-quarter earnings, reporting a 2.8 percent revenue growth on revenues of $27.5 billion and consolidated earnings of 57 cents in diluted earnings per share. They activated 2.3 million iPhone 4 units in the June quarter, which is their first full quarter of iPhone sales. This is 1.3 million units less than the 3.6 million iPhone activations AT&T reported yesterday, which in itself was a flat growth in iPhone activations for AT&T compared to their previous quarter. The key thing to bear in mind here is that Verizon only sells iPhone 4 while AT&T also carries iPhone 3GS which costs just $49 after a two-year service contract.  In the seven weeks they had been selling iPhone 4 in the previous quarter Verizon Wireless activated 2.2 million units.

We now have enough data to draw some solid conclusions. Apple sold 20.34 million iPhones in the June quarter, representing 142 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Adding Verizon’s and AT&T’s activation figures leaves Apple with 14.44 million iPhones sold overseas, or 71 percent of the 20.34 million iPhone units sold in the quarter. This is a higher ratio than Apple’s overall international sales that accounted for 62 percent of the quarter’s revenue. True, AT&T’s, Verizon’s and Apple’s June quarter is not exactly the same day, but the comparison is pretty close nevertheless.

Another thing to factor in: Apple may have sold a lot of iPhones to people who take them overseas. That Verizon activated only additional 100,000 iPhone 4 units in the full quarter tells us sales are decelerating as their customers probably put off iPhone 4 purchases in anticipation of a new model this Fall. Verizon also reported sales of 1.2 million 4G LTE devices, a 3.2 percent year-over-year increase of ARPU and 2.2 million new connections totaling 89.7 million subscribers at the quarter’s end versus 98.7 million for AT&T.

Verizon also sold The carrier also announced in a separate statement that its current CEO Ivan Sandberg will step down to be replaced by 57-year-old president and COO Lowell McAdam, effective August 1. The change is part of Verizon’s CEO succession process under way since 2010. Sandberg will retain his chairman of the board position. Lowell has been a member of Verizon’s executive team since 2000 and COO over the last ten months.