The iPhone 3GS was a record-setting winner for AT&T Mobility. The company, which reported its second-quarter earnings today, said it activated 2.4 million iPhones and added 3.5 million integrated 3G devices (or handsets with Qwerty or virtual keyboards) on its network during the quarter.
AT&T's Mobility division had an operating income of $3.2 billion, up 2.8 percent over the same quarter a year ago, and operating expenses of $10.1 billion, up 12.5 percent. However, the company's wireless operating margin was slightly lower for the quarter at 23.8 percent vs. 25.5 percent in the year-earlier quarter. In addition, its second-quarter operating income before depreciation and amortization (OIBDA) margin was 38.3 percent for the quarter. This margin decline likely was due to iPhone 3GS acquisition costs. Without those costs, AT&T said its second-quarter OIBDA margin would have been 40 percent. Here's a breakdown of other key metrics:
Net adds: AT&T added 1.4 million net subscribers during the quarter, for a total of 79.6 million subscribers. Of the quarter's net adds, 1.2 million were postpaid, which is an increase of 29 percent compared with the second quarter of last year.
ARPU: Average revenue per user increased 2.3 percent to $60.21 compared with the year-earlier quarter. Postpaid data ARPU was $17.72, up $3.66 over the previous year's quarter and up $1.24 from the first quarter of 2009.
Churn: Postpaid churn was just 1.09 percent, the lowest level in the company's history, and down from 1.10 percent in the previous year's quarter. Total churn was 1.49 percent, down from 1.64 percent in the year-earlier quarter.
Data growth: AT&T's data revenues increased 37.2 percent over second quarter of 2008 to $3.4 billion. Data now accounts for 28.7 percent of AT&T's second quarter wireless revenue. The company said its subscribers sent an average of more than 1 billion text message a day, and its total text messaging traffic for the quarter exceeded 108 billion. AT&T also said it increased the number of 3G laptop cards on its network by 50 percent, for a total of 1.4 million.
For more:
- see this press release
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