“Apple’s iPhones could be far more profitable than we thought. Based on an analysis of iPhone revenue that Apple reported yesterday, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster estimates today that carrier partner AT&T pays Apple $18 per month for each of its iPhone subscribers. Over the course of a two-year contract, that’s $432-per-sub payment ,” Dan Frommer reports for Silicon Valley Insider.

“Assuming a $400 iPhone and a $18 monthly contribution from AT&T, Apple would record $832 in revenue over two years per phone,” Frommer reports. “At Apple’s current U.S. run rate of about 1.8 million iPhones per quarter, that’s about $1 billion in gross profit per quarter (which will be recorded over two years).”

“This morning, AT&T said that it has activated 1.1 million iPhones. But Apple has sold 1.4 million since they went on sale in late June. Assuming Munster’s new AT&T payments, 300,000 un-activated iPhones means Apple is losing out on almost $130 million in gross profit over two years,” Frommer reports.

Full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Investor" for the heads up.]

To the innovator goes the spoils. Also, it would be a mistake to assume that those 300,000 un-activated iPhones are in use as unlocked devices on non-AT&T networks as a significant portion of them could well be gifts just waiting to be given.

Conversely, if the majority of those 300,000 un-activated iPhones actually are in use as unlocked devices on non-AT&T networks, that’s a nice “problem” for Apple to have as it proves the device’s popularity and bodes very well for future iPhone sales success.