Verizon: 4.2 Million iPhones Sold During Holiday Quarter

Oops. It looks as though Verizon's chief financial officer Fran Shammo prematurely spilled the beans on a major fact of business for the nation's largest wireless carrier.

The revelation came at the Citi Global Entertainment Media & Communications Conference on Wednesday where Shammo was speaking.

It isn't clear exactly why the Verizon executive opted to reveal this information only a few weeks before Apple is set to report earnings for the holiday sales quarter, but one thing is for sure: Verizon apparently sold a whole bunch of iPhones.

As the numbers indicate, for the final three months of 2011, Verizon logged twice the number of iPhones it sold during the third quarter of last year. By comparison, AT&T sold 2.7 million iPhones in the third quarter. And it now appears that both carriers may be neck-and-neck in terms of Q4 iPhone sales.


The reason, according to AT&T and Verizon, that Q3 iPhone sales were a tad sluggish is because consumers were eagerly awaiting the next-gen iPhone, which ultimately debuted in October (after Q3 ended in September). And, as we all know, the iPhone 4S became the best selling new iPhone in Apple history.

In the days ahead, we will finally see just how much cash the iPhone 4S craze has generated so far for Apple and its carrier partners in the United States.

Source: Street Insider