AT&T and Apple: AT&T Relying on Apple Heavily

AT&T and Apple: In today’s day and age, it is not a surprise to many that the majority of people are moving away from the use of landlines. While this has the potential to harm some companies, such as AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T), it is doing big things for others, such as Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL).

Despite the fact that AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) is seeing a decrease in its number of landline customers, thanks to smartphone and tablet sales, including a large number from Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), the company has been able to chug along at a nice pace.

With the help of increased smartphone and tablet sales, AT&T has been able to “grow its net income in the first quarter by 3.2 percent, to $3.7 billion compared with the same period last year, even while revenues dropped 1.5 percent, to $31.4 billion,” according to eweek.com.

Just like every other mobile carrier is finding out, wireless connectivity is what consumers in the United States are looking for.

Many years ago, one would have thought that a decline in landline business would mean the end of AT&T. However, the company has done a nice job pivoting, with the assistance of companies such as Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), to ensure greater success in the future.

During the first quarter of 2013, the wireless carrier sold a record six million smartphones. While this number may sound impressive, even more so is the fact that 4.8 million of these devices were Apple iPhones.

That being said, AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) is not dumb enough to put all its eggs in one basket. The company offers a variety of smartphones, including those that rely on the Android operating system as well as BlackBerry devices.

Growth was also taken to the next level thanks to an increase in postpaid subscribers, relying heavily on tablets, more specifically, the Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPad.

The same eweek.com piece noted that “the carrier added 365,000 postpaid tablet subscribers, and the overall increase in connected device users were 431,000. And those connected device users paid to use AT&T’s network to reach the Internet: Wireless data revenues increased 21 percent in the quarter, to $5.1 billion.”

It is not fair to say that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is responsible for all the success that AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) is having. However, you do have to give Cupertino a lot of credit. The iPhone sales alone say a lot about how well these two companies are working together.

Do you expect AT&T Inc. to rely heavily on the sales of Apple products in the future?

Check back here for more updates on AT&T and Apple.

DISCLOSURE: I have no positions in any stock mentioned.

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