27% of iPhones Are Unlocked
Not Great News for Apple or AT&T
In theory, everyone in the U.S. who has an iPhone is an AT&T customer, as this telecom has an exclusive contract with Apple. In reality, more than one-quarter of iPhones have been unlocked so that they can be used with other telecoms.
This figure comes from Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi, who says that approximately 1 million of the smartphones sold by Apple in the U.S. last year were bought by people who haven't signed up for an AT&T plan.
Exactly how this compares with the numbers of other smartphones that get unlocked is not known, but iPhones are almost certainly being unlocked at a far higher rate than is common.
Bad news for the Two Main Players
It's obvious that this is bad news for AT&T, but it would be easy to think that Apple wouldn't care about this -- a sale is a sale, after all. However, Apple receives a percentage of the monthly fee iPhone users pay AT&T, which naturally doesn't happen when the device is being used with T-Mobile or another telecom.
Whether Apple and AT&T will take steps to make it even harder for users to unlock the iPhone is not yet known. This smartphone is already one of the hardest models to unlock.
This figure comes from Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi, who says that approximately 1 million of the smartphones sold by Apple in the U.S. last year were bought by people who haven't signed up for an AT&T plan.
Exactly how this compares with the numbers of other smartphones that get unlocked is not known, but iPhones are almost certainly being unlocked at a far higher rate than is common.
Bad news for the Two Main Players
It's obvious that this is bad news for AT&T, but it would be easy to think that Apple wouldn't care about this -- a sale is a sale, after all. However, Apple receives a percentage of the monthly fee iPhone users pay AT&T, which naturally doesn't happen when the device is being used with T-Mobile or another telecom.
Whether Apple and AT&T will take steps to make it even harder for users to unlock the iPhone is not yet known. This smartphone is already one of the hardest models to unlock.
