iPhone Accounts For 78% of Smartphone’s Activated By AT&T During Q1 of 2012

According to AT&T’s sales report for Q1 of 2012 they can still claim with confidence that they are the “iPhone Network“. The mobile service provider mammoth released their report for the March quarter earlier this morning that boasted 5.5 million smartphone sales last quarter, 4.3 million of which were Apple’s iPhone. That means that the iPhone accounted for over 78 percent of the smartphones sold at AT&T last quarter.

The carrier said that, “iPhone sales were helped by AT&T’s 4G LTE network, which lets the iPhone 4s download three times faster than other U.S. carrier networks.”

The 5.5 million smartphones that AT&T sold during the previous three months is a record for the company. Of the 4.3 million iPhone’s that AT&T sold last quarter 21 percent of those were new customers.

AT&T’s chief rival Verizon activated 3.2 million iPhone’s during the same quarter, with 6.3 million total smartphones sold. During the first quarter of the year AT&T earned revenues of  31.8 billion, which is up $578 million from the same quarter last year.  Their diluted earnings per share increased by 3 cents from 57 cents during the first quarter of 2011 to 60 cents during the first quarter of 2012.

AT&T’s 4G network has allowed them to differentiate themselves further from their major competitors Verizon and Sprint, which offer much slower CDMA networks that are not capable of reaching HSDPA speeds. Furthermore, “real” 4G still remains exclusive’s to Apple’s new iPad, which is Cupertino’s first LTE capable product. AT&T made no mention of iPad sales in their press release this morning.