The Rising iPhone Tide Will Lift Some Carrier Boats More Than Others

A new report out from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech takes that one step further to lay out which operator will benefit the most from a new iPhone.

In the quarter that ended Sept 4, Android took 62.9 percent of all sales, while iPhone took 24.6 percent of all sales. What does this mean for iPhone sales going forward? In the U.S. AT&T has 84 percent of all Apple customers and 44 percent of those AT&T iPhone owners have had their Apple mobile for 18 months or more. AT&T is likely to see a lot more business from the new iPhone than other operators in their markets. This will be helped by the fact that iPhone owners tend to be very loyal. That doesn't take account of the fact, though, that the majority -- only just -- are still without smartphones altogether: that will be a market that Apple (and all of the operators) are still hotly contesting.