AT&T Claims 146,000 iPhone Activations in First Two Days

Numbers are finally starting to come out in regards to how the iPhone performed at launch. While no sales figures were given, AT&T is reporting in it’s second quarter financial results that 146,000 iPhones were activated in the first two days that the product was on the market. While this number seems pretty low to us, we have to keep a few things in perspective. First, this accounts for June 29th and 30th. The iPhone went on sale at 6:00 PM on June 29th, so this is really a measurement of a 30-hour period rather than a full 48 hour one. Secondly, as we all know, iPhones are not activated at the point of purchase. We are sure plenty were bought as gifts or to be resold, and thusly weren’t activated right away. Last, it was widely reported that there were plenty of activation issues surrounding the iPhone launch. We got emails from people who purchased at launch and weren’t able to activate for over 24 hours - some even longer than that.

Another interesting tidbit about AT&T’s report is that 40% of the 146,000 activations were for subscribers new to the AT&T network. That’s a high percentage, all thanks to Apple‘s first foray into the mobile phone space. Very impressive.