Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is still seeing its iPhone sales grow at the three largest carriers in the U.S. Analysts at Raymond James aggregated the iPhone sales data from Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ), AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) and Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE:S).
They found that the iPhone is still taking shares year over year at two of the three carriers—Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) and AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T).
They noted that the iPhone had an 80 percent share at AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) and a 56 percent share at Verizon. However, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s share on Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE:S)’s network slipped from 35 to 30 percent year over year. Nonetheless, iPhone shares were still a steady 56 percent at the three largest carriers in the nation.
Total smartphone sales fell to 14 percent year over year for all three major carriers during the first three months of the year, a drop from 17 percent in the previous quarter. However, analysts at Raymond James said the percentage was still higher than they expected. They said this indicates that the smartphone market is simply maturing rather than collapsing.
They expect to see modest iPhone share gains in the U.S. from 48 percent last year to 52 percent this year, including T-Mobile USA. It’s likely that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) will see the most growth from T-Mobile because the carrier just got the iPhone this year for the first time.
Overall, they believe iPhone sales this year will grow 13 percent while sales of all other operating systems will decrease 2 percent at the top four carriers. The analysts factored in a late September launch for the iPhone 5S into their figures.
