Numbers for either American iPhone launch have never formally been published by either Apple or AT&T, although observers have generally agreed that Apple sold approximately 270,000 iPhones for the device's opening weekend, suggesting that over 500,000 iPhone 3G units have been sold in the US so far.

AT&T also acknowledges that the shortage of original iPhones in the spring may have affected its customer additions and sales for the period. The provider had a net addition of about 1.3 million new customers to push its user base to about 72.9 million subscribers, dismissing Verizon's claims of a lead with 68.7 million; however, the company says only 894,000 of these were subscriptions rather than prepaid and says the figure came "despite" Apple running out of iPhone stock prematurely during the quarter.

AT&T's total additions were lower than last year with 123,000 fewer customers being added in the quarter a year ago, but up 38,000 over results from the winter.

The firm also says it has reduced churn (the replacement of old customers with new) to an all-time low of 1.1 percent and is still seeing strong growth in its U-Verse high-speed Internet and IPTV services; the company's total revenue was up 4.7 percent year-over-year to $30.9 billion, while practical operating income was up 35 percent to $6.6 billion.