Verizon has revealed its third quarter (Q3) results and they aren’t bad. According to an official press release, the wireless carrier added 882,000 new contract subscribers for the quarter. According to AllThingsD, the carrier sold 2 million iPhones during the quarter–less than the 2.3 million it sold last quarter and less than the 2.7 million iPhone activations AT&T announced yesterday. Naturally, these numbers are below analyst expectations, but they don’t seem too bad to us. iPhone sales slowed in the last quarter as people waited for the iPhone 4S.
Here are some more numbers for your enjoyment. Verizon now has 90.7 million contract subscribers. 4G, LTE phones are off to a decent start. In their first quarter of availability, 1.4 million LTE phones (all Android) were sold. 39 percent of all Verizon customers have switched to smartphones which has resulted in a 20 percent growth in Verizon’s data revenue, though part of that surge is also because it raised rates and now charges more for less data. Finally, half of all smartphone sales have been Android phones. This is about in line with other carriers.
We’ll skip the intricate numbers, but Verizon’s total operating revenue was $27.9 billion for the quarter, which is up 5.4 percent from last year. Total expenses clocked in at $23.3 billion, meaning the company made about $4.6 billion in profit. Not bad for three months work. We can only dream that Verizon might share its profit with users. Currently, it’s service and phone prices are higher than any other carrier.
