“Sales rose 2.8 percent to $31.6 billion from $30.7 billion a year earlier, Dallas-based AT&T said in a statement today. Analysts projected $31.2 billion on average. Earnings, excluding one-time items, were 55 cents a share, matching the average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg,” Bensinger reports. “AT&T’s exclusive U.S. hold on the iPhone helped it win 2.6 million new wireless customers and lock some of them in to two- year contracts.”
“‘This will be the peak quarter of iPhone activations for a while as exclusivity of the device is expected to go away in early 2011,’ said Jennifer Fritzsche, a Wells Fargo & Co. analyst in Chicago,” Bensinger reports. “She has an ‘outperform’ rating on AT&T shares.”
Bensinger reports, “Larger rival Verizon Wireless may begin selling the iPhone on its network as soon as January, two people familiar with the plan said in June. The Basking Ridge, New Jersey-based carrier has said it will start selling the iPad this month, gaining access to a device that AT&T started providing wireless service for earlier this year.”
Full article here.
