AT&T, in announcing the results of its first fiscal quarter, said it had activated 4.8 million iPhones during the period. The Apple smartphone accounted for 80% of AT&T's six million total smartphones.

During the fiscal quarter, AT&T reported strong earnings per share and cash flows in the first-quarter driven by strong mobile data growth, solid postpaid net adds and continued strong gains in U-verse services, says Randall Stephenson, company chairman and CEO.

"Our wireless network performance continues to be terrific," he adds. "And that helped drive our best ever first quarter for smartphone sales, improved wireless churn and strong growth in mobile data revenues. We also posted record sales of our U-verse high-speed IP service. Across all of these areas, we’ve built a solid foundation for future growth in mobile Internet and IP broadband, which will only expand as we progress with Project VIP.”

For the quarter ending March 31, AT&T's consolidated revenues totaled US$31.4 billion, down 1.5 % versus the year-earlier quarter and up 0.9% when excluding revenues from the divested Advertising Solutions business unit. Compared with results for the first quarter of 2012, operating expenses were $25.4 billion versus $25.7 billion; operating income was $5.9 billion versus $6.1 billion; and operating income margin was 18.9%, compared to 19.2%.