Despite AT&T’s nearly eight-month head start, Verizon has managed to capture nearly a third of the US iPhone 4 market. Mobile app analytics firm Localytics broke down all US iPhone 4 traffic to come up with the figure, as well as charting the Verizon iPhone’s growth since its launch in February.
Summer has seen significant growth in Verizon’s market share. After spending most of the spring at roughly the same share, Verizon has seen consecutive monthly jumps, grabbing 7% of the market for itself in May and June.
Why the recent uptick in Verizon adoption? One reason may be Verizon’s unlimited data plan, which they are scheduled to do away with on July 7th. AT&T officially discontinued its unlimited data plan in mid-2010, although existing customers were allowed to keep their plan as long as they remained AT&T customers. Localytics promises to continue tracking the shift in iPhone 4 market share to see if Verizon loses momentum post-unlimited-data.
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Although various outlets reported on response to the Verizon iPhone launch being lackluster, the network has managed to pull together a very respectable segment of the iPhone-using market. With rumors swirling about the iPhone 5 perhaps launching in September on multiple carriers, Verizon’s recent market share gains may be a precursor of what is to come this fall.
Methodology:
Each month’s market share number is based on the seven-day period leading up to the 1st of the month – therefore, numbers should be taken as market share on the first day of the stated month. Data is based on app usage as seen by Localytics.
About Localytics
Localytics is a mobile app analytics firm based in Cambridge, MA. With plans for app developers of all sizes, Localytics can provide unparallelled insights into users of your app, and how users consume your app. For more information or to add Localytics mobile app analytics to your project, visit Localytics.com, and contact us with questions about this study or Localytics research.
Source: Localytics
I’d be more interested in seeing Android vs. iPhone percentages on Verizon.
Another note, how many of those Verizon iPhones are AT&T switchers? I’d wager not many. And if so, that’s very good news for Apple.
The reason for the “lackluster” launch was because Verizon wasn’t launching a new iPhone model, and most of their customers are converts from other phones, so they had to juggle their contracts. Plus, this “lackluster” launch refers only to no long lens outside Verizon stores. It fails to take into account the huge push Verizon made to it’s customers to order their iPhones online.
This is also a good reason why Apple has delayed the iPhone 5 until September. Apple and Verizon didn’t want new iPhone 4 users upset that their iPhone was outdated just 3-4 months after buying it.
The Verizon launch was not actually “lackluster” (hence you correctly used inverted commas around this word), but, in big picture, Apple was eight months late: iPhone 4 should have been available to Verizon customers right through beginning. This eight months delay costed Apple tens of millions of USA’s customers, which had to use Samsung and HTC smartphones.
Even with this mistake, situation for Apple improves little by little as some older contracts for Android phones will expire and some of the audience might switch to iPhones.
But now Apple has to finally make iPhones available to both Sprint and T-Mobile. And this concerns also other countries with alternative cell phone standards.
Finally, Apple has to fix some problems with iPhone pricing around the world. There are parts, sometimes big parts, where the pricing looks like sabotage of Apple cellphone business, since the devices cost way more than any sane price, reasonably adjusted with import fee and value-added tax.
In some of such markets iPhone 4 16 GB costs $1200, while if you add import fee and value-added tax to USA’s retail price, you will get only $649 + 5% + 18% = $800. Apple loses such markets every day with such policy.
If iPhone has been launched on Verizon, I’d have waited until AT&T got it.
The inability to do something as basic as simultaneous voice/data makes iPhone unusable to business users like me.
Verizon. How 1980’s!
“Why the recent uptick in Verizon adoption? One reason may be Verizon’s unlimited data plan, which they are scheduled to do away with on July 7th. ”
This.
And those with crappy service areas with AT&T.
Don’t forget that AT&T has 2 iPhone models available, in comparison to only 1 at VZ. For some people the $49 price on the iPhone 3Gs is too good to pass up, even with the iPhone 4’s superior features. So 1/3 of iPhone 4s are sold at VZ, which is great! But that’s not 1/3 of ALL iPhone sales. I’m curious as to what percentage of iPhones are the cheaper 3GS models.
more iphones – good. who cares who sells them?