Here’s How Much Apple’s iPhone Grew Last Year

The overall U.S. market for the iPhone almost doubled in this past year, growing 98 percent year-on-year, according to Asymco analyst Horace Dediu. Although Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) earnings are on the deck on Thursday afternoon, Dediu used activation numbers reported by Verizon (NYSE:VZ), AT&T (NYSE:T), and Sprint (NYSE:S) over the past week to make his calculations.

AT&T said it activated 4.7 million Apple smartphones in the quarter, Verizon reported activations of 3.1 million, while Sprint came in at 1.5 million. That implied growth rates of 74 percent for AT&T and 55 percent for Verizon. A comparative number is not available for Sprint, which received the Apple smartphone less than a year ago.

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Dediu also used the U.S. activation numbers to estimate how the iPhone did worldwide over the last quarter. “The question of how the product did globally is complicated by the launch of the iPhone 5,” the analyst wrote. “As those units were mostly sold in the U.S., global growth might be slower and the mix of U.S. to global sales could be a bit higher this quarter.

“Nevertheless, averaging the mix over the last six quarters implies global iPhone sales of between 27 million and 30 million. The safe bet would be toward the low end of that range,” he wrote.

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