“AT&T Inc. may defy the recession, posting faster subscriber growth this holiday season by tempting shoppers to unclench their wallets for luxury brands like the iPhone even as consumers scrimp elsewhere,” Amy Thomson reports for Bloomberg.
“AT&T probably will be the lone carrier to show accelerating growth this quarter, gaining 1.5 million contract customers, said Will Power, an analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co. That compares with 1.2 million a year earlier. Growth at Verizon Wireless, which debuted the BlackBerry Storm last month, may be little changed from 2007, adding 1.5 million subscribers,” Thomson reports. “‘People still want those iconic devices and are willing to pay up for them,’ said Dallas-based Power. ‘Look at wireless and consumer behavior generally, this also applies to the lower- income demographics.'”
Thomson reports, “AT&T said today that it will cut 12,000 jobs, or 4 percent of its workforce, because of economic pressures and a changing mix of businesses. The carrier plans to keep adding workers to its mobile-phone division to meet demand, shifting resources as more customers abandon home-phone lines.”
“Users of smart phones like the iPhone spend more on surfing the Web and downloading music, making them more profitable customers. IPhone users at AT&T, the biggest U.S. phone company by subscribers, spend 1.6 times as much as the average person,” Thomson reports. “‘Even in this economy, amazingly enough, people are still spending on what we’d call high-end phones,’ said Jennifer Fritzsche, a Chicago-based analyst with Wachovia Securities Inc. ‘People are not backing away from this.'”
“Apple sold a record 6.9 million iPhones 3Gs last quarter, compared with 6.1 million BlackBerry devices over the same period. The company, which had pledged to sell 10 million iPhones in 2008, has already surpassed that goal, according to Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs,” Thomson reports. “The iPhone 3G surpassed Motorola Inc.’s Razr as the most popular handset for adults in the U.S. last quarter, according to researcher NPD Group Inc.”
Full article here.
“tempts people”
You siren you.
Verizon – “Oh #%$@#^##. Let’s fire that stupid CEO that lost the iPhone deal. Maybe Microsoft will hire him.“
Steve Jobs – ”Ya’ll come back if you ever want to try again, cause I done told you once you son-of-gun, I’m the best there’s ever been“ **
** with apologizes to Charlie Daniels Band
“[…] said Will Power”
Boy, his parents must have hated him.
“Life ain’t easy for a boy named ‘Will Power'”**
** with apologies to Shel Silverstein and Johnny Cash
Again, Apple’s growth in these tuff economic time can be seen. Yet, the clueless talking heads keep saying Apple is having problem.
Apple is having problems only with the talking heads. The switch to Apple is sucking the life out of the others that are loosing market share.
I wonder if the 12,000 ATT “jobs” being eliminated own any iPhones. (re: previous story) Do these headlines make any sense?
AT&T;is making some serious money on the iPhone. Why do they have to lay off 12K people?
Mark. Get real! The iPhone is less than a tenth of one percent of AT&T;’s business.
Mark. Get real! The iPhone is less than a tenth of one percent of AT&T;’s business.
I did not put the semi-colon in the previous post.
I give in.
ron,
It always does that.
It’s the @ sign that does it.
@ Mark
These layoffs are coming at the expense of those people working for sector landline.
The difference between losing and loosing seems to have escaped Jersey_Trader but worse than that he’s hardly alone. In fact, I’ve seen losing spelled loosing with monotonous regularity in on-line posts.
As for tuff, the spelling is tough…this is the first time I’ve seen “tuff” on the net. We are not amused.
tuff.
ATT systems don’t like errors, especially for first time buyers making on-line payments.
They make it very hard to pay (!?!) if you have problems with your first OL payment and especially if first 2 OL bill payment tries have problems
Any othere here have such a problem? More are coming in all the time…