The chief executives of AT&T Inc. and Sprint Nextel Corp. said Wednesday that demand for Apple Inc.’s new iPhone 5 looks to be high and is a sign that consumers are still willing to pay a premium for the latest iteration of the iconic smartphone.
Reuters
Apple shows the iPhone 5 at an event last week.
Speaking at a Goldman Sachs technology conference in New York, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said that the iPhone 5 is “selling very, very well,” and AT&T T +0.27% is making good progress in building out its LTE, or 4G wireless network.
“We’re having record sales with iPhones, and across the board, the portfolio of all that the smartphone business is hot,” Stephenson said.
Stephenson did not give any figures on iPhone 5 pre-orders with AT&T. On Monday, Apple AAPL +0.03% said that more than 2 million iPhone 5 units had been sold in the first 24 hours that pre-orders were available. The iPhone 5 begins shipping on Friday.
Stephenson said AT&T is seeing a willingness on the part of customers to buy an iPhone 5 even before the end of their upgrade cycles. However, as far as any data on pre-orders is concerned, “We don’t have any insight, yet, as to the magnitude of that. So we will see. But this continues to be a product that just has incredible demand, and people are willing to pay for it.”
Appearing separately from Stephenson, Sprint S +7.13% CEO Dan Hesse didn’t divulge any iPhone sales figures for his company, but he anticipated that it will be a strong-selling device.
“I don’t know how it compares with our competitors, but I would expect it’s doing well,” Hesse said. “I’m just glad we have it.”
Verizon Communications Inc. VZ +0.80% will also offer the iPhone 5 to its subscribers. Verizon chairman and CEO Lowell McAdam will speak at the Goldman conference Thursday morning.
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