December 07, 2011, 1:00 PM — It's been a tough few weeks for AT&T, what with its merger with T-Mobile USA seemingly doomed and the release of a Consumer Reports survey showing the wireless carrier once again ranked dead last in customer satisfaction.
But it's not all doom and gloom: AT&T on Wednesday said it expects its best quarter ever for smartphone sales, thanks to the iPhone 4S.
AT&T Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer John Stephens said the wireless carrier sold about 6 million smartphones in the first two months of Q4.
"Because December is traditionally one of the strongest sales months, AT&T now expects to break the previous single-quarter smartphone record of 6.1 million," the company said in a press release.
"Expects to break"? That's certainly playing it cautiously. The company has the entire month of December to break the record by selling all of 100,000 smartphones. If the first two months of the quarter are any indication, 7 million should be a cinch, 8 million likely and 9 million a distinct possibility. But I'm just making up numbers here, which I'm entirely unqualified to do because I'm not an analyst.
AT&T attributed its strong smartphone sales in part to a "higher number of handset upgrades from customers who were waiting for the launch of a new iPhone." While the company didn't bust out numbers on Wednesday, in mid-October it reported activating more than 1 million of the iPhone 4S in the first five days of availability.
In the third quarter, the iPhone comprised 56% of AT&T's smartphone activations. That was before the iPhone 4S hit the market, so Apple's popular device should account for an even higher percentage of AT&T activations in the fourth quarter.
Stevens made his comments at UBS 39th Annual Global Media and Communications Conference in New York.
Shares of AT&T (NYSE: T) were down 17 cents, or 0.6%, to 29.00 in early afternoon trading.
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